You’re confusing a God or universe-given purpose with “objective”. Objective simply means it’s not a matter of your opinion. Is drinking poison good for you (you are a biological organism and social animal)—the answer is “no, not usually”, and that’s as objective as it fucking gets.
How many times…? Let me put it in a simple nutshell, and leave it at that: The fact that any moral judgement, or judgement about anything, is based in part on what you are, and derives it’s truth based on what you are, does not make it a bias, or any less objectively true or false.
This is why I think you were fundamentally religious, and still getting over it. You think “objectively wrong” means wrong from the standpoint of the universe, or God, or whatever that is not you. What a hypocritical way of talking! Fact: If drinking poison harms what you are (i.e., who you are), then it is objectively bad. Period. Get this through your fucking head… It’s objectively bad, and don’t sulk and point to some vague “viewpoint of the universe” to then claim it’s just a “deluded bias”. Because it’s neither deluded nor a bias.
Anyways, the question you’re asking is nonsensical—another category error. Is existing good for the organism that you are? is a nonsensical question. This strikes me as the same mistake made in the ontological argument for the existence of God. Does that idea of a perfect being have to exist? Or is not existing a flaw? —just a thought error.
No, I agree with you here. That’s why I phrased it as a question to JS originally.
Personally I feel that saying (for example) Anders Breivik did exactly what he should of done is a hard bullet to bite. I raised the question because I wondered whether JS had considered this kind of result for the principal he is proposing. If he has, and is willing to bite that bullet, then there is no philosophical argument that I think of that would counter this. All I could say was that for me, I would never be willing to accept this consequence so I could never agree with his principal. Turns out he has a different response, which I plan to reply to very soon.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, as I read it what you are trying to do here is:-
-distinguish between desires that do help us survive, and desires which do not help us survive.
-Establish desires that do help us to survive as rational desires, and ones which don’t as irrational desires.
Ammend your answer to “What should we do in life?” - “Attain your desires to the maximum potential” - by adding that that we should only follow our rational desires, and not our irrational desires.
I think this response has legs (genuinely) but there are also potential hiccups. However, for a start, I think you need to clarify whether, when you say “Desires that don’t directly aide survival”. do you mean the survival purely of ourselves, or do you mean the survival of the human race as a whole? I think this distinction makes a big difference to what you are arguing here. I suspect you mean the latter but I feel the need to check.
We are social creatures. We have the desire to be social. This desire helps us survive and achieve higher levels of pleasure.
The survival of our individual self, relies on many things. We are part of a planetary system. We are adapted to live in this system. We should protect the system, for it enables us to survive.
We desire to see others at peace, rather than in pain. Unless we’ve lost sight.
I argue that, not only should we protect each other, but also other sentient beings when applicable. Also, we should try to live as sustainably as possible, for as soon as we destroy what supports us, we’re destroying our own well being.
The interest of the collective, is the interest of the individual, for the individual is part of the collective. So I want all of us to survive and I say it’s rational for everyone to, because we’re born with that bias.
Well, firstly, I think its important to note that the evolutionary foundation of all of our desires is not the survival of ourselves, but the survival of our genes. The desire for our own survival is, genetically speaking, a by-product of this - our genes can not survive without our own survival. But still, the ability of a certain piece of genetic code to survive in the real world and be reproduced is what determines its genetic fitness.
There is a marked difference between the two, although so far nothing has been said for which this distinction causes a problem.
I think you need to evidence this claim. It is certainly true that human kind evolved to live co-cooperatively in small groups. However, early homos lived in small groups and probably rarely had interactions with other groups because of low population density. As soon as these groups became big and common enough to start meeting each other, they started to fight each other and have wars. This suggests to me that we evolved at least some traits that would lead us to fight and break the peace.
There is a leap from claiming that we have the desire to be social with a small group (which I don’t doubt), and from saying that we evolved the desire to co-operate with everyone and see everyone else co operating. Perhaps we just evolved the desire to cooperate with a large enough group to make sure that our own genes survived: even in today’s world it is clearly not necessary for everyone to be cooperating for this to happen.
There are other desires that help us to survive. Our desire to extract revenge on people who hurt people we love is obviously a survival technique: beings with this desire would have been better able to protect their families and thus help ensure the continuation of their genes.
The desire to protect our possessions, aggressively if need be, is also a desire that obviously had evolutionary needs. I think many wars today are reflections of this desire - often backed up with rhetoric about ‘our country’, our peoples’ etc to drill in the fact that our possessions are being threatened and tap into that neolithic desire to protect them.
What about people acting on these desires? Are they rational or irrational? Why?
It isn’t the genes, but rather the total behavior of their assembly.
If by some means, the exact same behavior could be arranged by using a different molecular assembly, the person still survives.
You are not the bag of parts, but rather that bag’s behavior.
I argue the reason people fought with other groups is due to a mixture of fear and scarcity. If letting another tribe coexist with you meant less food for you, the outcome seems clear.
We don’t live in a world of natural scarcity, we live in a world of artificial scarcity. If we removed this man made scarcity, why couldn’t one enjoy the fruits of a larger community? We don’t share the ignorance our species had in the past. We know that skin colour, religion or location doesn’t define your worth.
Why then would we want to fight with our biggest threat? That being ourselves.
I would say if their fight was based on correct information and understanding, then it’s rational. They’re fighting for their own survival.
However, I would argue that the planet can support all of us. It’s just that we’re being inefficient as a whole.
I understand what you’re saying, Joe, and agree with you–except for your last statement. I don’t believe the planet can sustain us the way we’re going. We’re ruining it faster than it can replenish itself, in my mind. And a lot of it has to do with population growth. This is especially true in already over-populated countries where the land cannot sustain the poor. Often times, in those situations, the poor will do anything to survive even though it means depleting resources or polluting air and water. I just don’t see an overnight solution to it, because I don’t see everyman curbing her/his desires in order to provide for any future harmony among ourselves or between ourselves and Earth.
I argue that population isn’t the true source of the strain we put on the planet. Obviously, the more people, the more strain, but I believe we can sustain the people currently alive. The source is our ignorance. We live in a very sick society which encourages irrational practices.
We could feed everyone on this planet, but we have this idea in us that people need to prove their right to be able to eat. This is the mentality coming from scarcity.
Do we say someone needs to pay for Air? Nope. Why? Because it’s abundant and plenty to go around. Due to our improved technological understandings, we can create an abundance in many things. Do we really need to pay for energy? There’s a sun spewing out energy 24/7.
There isn’t enough jobs for people to do. We should be happy, but no. Not this system. We say you NEED to do something or we wont feed you. Food isn’t scarce. Our society restricts it so we can employ people. Companies end up throwing it away.
Our desires are distorted by our sick society. What we want is to live. This gets skewed into a mentality where we fight every other people as though this produces better results.
I don’t this is a bad ‘rule’, but in practice it is very complicated. I have a desire not suffer, so this affects directly going for certain desires. I have a desire not to make others suffer - in most situations. I may want that parking spot RIGHT NOW but I would find running that old lady over right now to get to it undesirable (at least also). Desire on its own, without involving the other emotions, is not enough of a guideline for direction.
The problem with feeding the world, Joe, is it doesn’t slow down population growth–in some areas growth might even increase. Overpopulation can lead to water and air pollution, especially when coupled with deforestation. Trees not only oxygenate the air, they also filter and conserve water, affect climate, and give shelter to wildlife–all of which is good for the earth. Of the total amount of water on the earth, only 3% is fresh water and most of that is frozen. Some scientists say our fresh water resources as being depleted.
And no one has to "prove"their ‘right’ to eat by doing anything; in my mind, at least, people want to be somehow productive. Can you imagine a life of doing nothing? I can’t! Part of living is accomplishing goals; part of living is movement.
A lot of people have described our society here in the US as sick–but no one has explained how or why it’s sick. Is it our over-consumption of ‘toys’? If so, stop buying beyond what is needed to live. Is it our propensity for war? Try teaching the Hawks of the world not to go to war. Try teaching war lords and leaders to take care of their own people first; then, when everyone is fed, there may no longer be any reason for one tribe, or one segment of a population to war against their own people.
There are plenty of people in the US, and here at ILP, who question “our system”–and who’re trying to effectuate changes–from Right Wing Conservatives to Left Wing Liberals to Middle Road Indies. They all want everyone to conform to their political ideals. Not everyone thinks in black and white.
Haha, so you condone their starvation. No, our society is fine!
In Western countries, we’re well fed. We have less kids. Why is this? A few reasons spring to mind.
We have individual goals. We use birth control. We educated and critical thinkers. We don’t rely on our children to look after us when we’re old. We have the time and energy to consider what’s beyond our direct environment.
People who are starving or seek solace in Religion aren’t thinking and acting rationally. Having fifteen children is irresponsible.
I say if we educate people, then they wont cause further overpopulation. Also, we can sustain the people we have on this planet currently, it’s just that we use obsolete practices that harm each other and our planet.
If we didn’t have to prove ourselves, why isn’t food free? Why isn’t energy free? If everyone’s deserving of it, why do we restrict it’s access to people who can afford it.
Who the fuck WANTS to stand beside a conveyor belt for 8 hours a day? Who wants to stack boxes? Who wants to wash toilets?
In our society, people complain “There isn’t enough jobs!”. Let’s step back and consider a different environment. Consider when you were a child living with your parents/siblings. Did you ever complain “There aren’t enough jobs!”? Did you complain when the dishes were washed? When the floors were swept? I doubt it. Why is that? Because you were free to do what interested you.
Why then, do we complain when there’s no jobs as adults? Because we have to do something, or we wont be supported. This is our society saying, you must do something for us, before we do something for you. You must contribute, or we wont give you access to anything that requires money (which is everything).
This means that we’re constantly scrambling to create more shit for people to do. It’s so inefficient and detached from reality. We purposefully build things of substandard quality, so more people are employed. Our economic structure is based on cyclical consumption, which means as soon as consumption stops, so does the economy.
This is utter stupidity.
We’re sick because we support a system that perpetuates the suffering of others. I’m not even going to elaborate on how corrupt we are, and how we affect the rest of the planet.
Political? I’m talking about acting to the interest of our selves and our planet. Not being deluded by all the bullshit that’s drilled into you. I’m talking about what matters.
You’re going to dismiss me 'cause you love your status-quo. Do your own shit, just don’t bother me.
I’d refer to brevel_monkey and the posts about rational and irrational desires.
We desire to take into account other emotions, if we didn’t, they’d be irrelevant to us. Also, “Live for Desire” is a plan, you’re not obligated to follow it, therefore, not a rule.
I don’t think its the same desire applied on a larger scale because the two desires are inconsistent. The desire to look after and protect a small group of people can lead to direct, violent conflict with other people or groups of people. For example, say that two groups of early humans found the same food source, but the supply was limited. The desire to look after and protect all of human kind could not have this effect. They are clearly, therefore, two completely separate desires.
Actually, we can see how they are different desires with some elementary logic. There is a clear logical distinction between ‘some’ and ‘all’, so that the latter is more than just an ‘extension’ of the former, because they have completely different inferences. ‘some’ can mean a little, or a lot, but as soon as it becomes ‘all’ it takes on a completely different meaning. Say I like ‘some’ apples: then show me an apple, and there is a chance (but no guarantee) that I will like it. Whether I like any given apple will probably be down to other factors, like how sweet it is, and whether its ripe or not. The fact that its an apple will not be the reason that I like it. But say I like ‘all’ apples, then it is logically inconsistent for there to be any apple, past present or future, which I don’t like. The fact that it is an apple will be enough to guarantee that I like it, other factors will be irrelevant. The same is true here: if I have a desire to cooperate with ‘some’ people, then whether or not I will feel the need to cooperate with any given person will depend on a variety of factors (like how closely they are related to me or my group, whether they pose a threat to me etc). However, if I have the desire to cooperate with ‘all’ people, then it will be the fact that they are human which guarantees that I will have the desire to cooperate with them, and all other factors will be irrelevant. With the ‘some’ desire, I desire to cooperate with some people of a whole load of factors which ultimately make them useful to the survival of my genetic code. With the ‘all’ desire, I desire to cooperate with them only because they are human.
Speaking about evolution, I can see no reason why we would have formed the ‘all’ desire. Clearly, the ‘some’ desire was the one that was useful for survival. This continues to cause a problem for your theory, because it is difficult to see why the desire to help all of human kind is a rational one (under your working definition of a rational desire), because the desire is not necessary to survive, and never has been. Surely, as long as my ‘group’ is big and powerful enough, there is no need for me to desire to protect other groups. Actually, it might be more rational to eradicate other groups, just in case there are any shortages in the future or those groups chose to try and eradicate us (which they might). Apes, for example, commonly exclude members of their shrewdness if they unsuccessfully challenge the leader of the group, and commonly leave badly injured apes behind. Clearly they have the desire to cooperate with ‘some’ and not ‘all’ other apes.
So, it seems to me that under your definitions, the most rational desires to follow are those that align us to, and help us form and create the most powerful groups of people by cooperating with some people, but not necessarily all. Sure, you want to argue that there’s no need for other people on the other world to be starving. But under your theory about following my rational desires - it seems like there’s no rational reason for me to care about anyone who isn’t in my group.
And selfish reasons to cooperate with people who aren’t needed, but could improve quality of Life.
We evolve in the mind, so we could understand the mutual benefit of the survival and cooperation of the entire species, instead of promoting division and war.
It seems irrational not to embrace the opportunity.
Divvying desires up into rational and irrational ones is a common trait of all but the most ascetic religions, along with various secular philosophies. I was hoping this was a bit more radical.
I don’t experience desire as leading to my taking account of other emotions. It seems like some people desire not to take into account other emotions, but when I get scared or enraged, I simply take account, though even that compound verb seems a little distanced.
However, rational and irrational desires are relative to the goal. If under some circumstance, you had a different goal than survival (which is what the plan presumes), then based on the plan, you’re rational for seeking it and I wouldn’t tell you not to.
I argue a few things : There is no free will, no objective purpose, no morality, no ethics. Then I say, as long as you want to seek something, seek it.
What would you consider radical? The plan can be rationally extended to do any action. I myself would desire the alteration of my body so I wasn’t influenced by the delusions. I don’t know what I’d do then, but that’s the beauty of it. The choice itself is a rational extension of a desire I have that overwhelms the others, so I’m following the plan. It’s just not in the interest of my survival.
In which case, they’re going to influence your decision making and alter your goals. This is beyond our control at the moment, so it’s part of the ‘born into it, no choice’ category. These things are already being taken into account, so they don’t alter the plan. Also, people desire to feel certain emotions ie. love, security, courage ect.
