Then you have a moral issue. Moral issues are dealt with by the people who you claimed are useless—that is, applied ethicists. Most moral issues are hard to solve—that’s why they’re ‘issues’. To throw up your hands and say that settling everything is impossible… well, that’s a very half-assed, part-timing, lazy, sleazy, pessimistic, pointless attitude. It doesn’t solve the problems we need to.
It’s a bad analogy. At least, that’s what I’d argue. I would argue the difference by pointing out the differences between a fetus at different stages of development, and a fully-developed human being with all its faculties, capable of feeling pain, who has attachments, can think/create, can will, desire, love, set goals, etc. In the early stages of development, a fetus is nothing more than a clump of cells no bigger than a small coin. It can’t feel pain. It can’t form attachments. It can’t sustain itself. It’s nothing like a person. It’s not a person, not yet. Etcetera. I’d go on in this way. Aborting the possibility of a human life is not the same as torturing, starving, caging, burning a human being for years, and then having them dig their own grave to be shot in, or else gassed. —Especially when you are aborting the possibility of a life full of disease and suffering. (Often people want abortions when the furthest advances of medical science predict their child will life a short, painful, diseased, limited life). This is to say nothing about tearing people apart from their relationships, putting them in slavery, and making soap and lampshades out of them after they’ve been forced to dig their own grave and shot in it, or gassed. I would wipe my ass with your offensive analogies. Anyways, this is how I would argue against your analogy. If I was an applied ethicist, I’d be more polite, and open to hearing the reasons for and against whatever both of the sides were. And we’d go from there. There’s all kinds of methods.
But really, I don’t know why we are talking about some particular moral issue. The point you need to grasp is simple: Moral issues can be solved.
You have been saying all along that ANYTHING can be rationalized, and it follows from that, that solving moral problems is impossible—because ultimately everything must fall back (rely on) God or Reason (still not sure why you capitalize the latter). If you want to change your position—well, I’m surprised it has taken this long!
And you’re not? We’re all story tellers this far out into the purely speculative range. You’re either one and you know it or you’re one and you don’t. We all make leaps. We just argue over where or when it either is or is not necessary.
Or, surreally, you go in the other direction:
As though the stuff of math and science does not beget knowledge that for all practical purposes isn’t objective enough.
But Magee’s point is that philosophy either goes out to the edge or it does not. And you have to in order to understand the relationship between any particular existing thing and existence itself. Everything is interwined into relationships that can be deeply enigmatic. Also, relationships that may go beyond what can even be construed by the human mind “rationally”.
Maybe, but let’s not forget the only way you seem to “demonstrate” this is by piling up a bunch of words you claim define and defend another bunch of words. You can never make an argument about human cognition that is entirely empirical. And, even if you claim to, how does the entirely empirical brain become matter able to freely choose this instead of that?
Again:
We have a situation [here] where the brain is trying to explain its own capacity to explain itself. We have the brain trying to decide if this can be pursued “freely”. It’s the intellectual equivalent of a hall of mirrors.
You rejoin:
As though this reflects an intelligent rebuttal. In my view, you don’t have a clue as to how to address these mysteries. But then [so far] nobody does.
More circles. I am taking this backward. Why? Because you would take it forward instead. Forward is how you think, backward is how everyone who does not think like you thinks.
As though either philosophy or science can differentiate between forward and backward when reflecting on the very nature of existence itself.
You may as well insist that Eastern philosophy is perforce irrational because it is not Western philosophy. In other words, in the logocentric realm of European philosophy everything is either/or.
Well, at least we both agree this is not necessarily the case regarding the relationship between is and ought.
Although I am always willing to concede I may be wrong.
This however is what intrigues me:
I say:
But [mindful matter] seems to be quite different. Again: After nearly 14,000,000,000 years it is the only matter capable of naming itself.
You say:
Uh, huh?
I say:
It is the only matter capable of asking “what is the meaning of matter?” or “Why matter instead of no matter?” or “Why this matter and not another matter?” or “Where did matter come from?” or “What is the ultimate fate of matter?”
You say:
Uh, huh?!!
iambiguous wrote:
But we can’t talk about it unless we open our minds and think about it from all possible directions. Magee is an atheist. He is not trying to suggest “mind” is a pathway to “God” or some “New Age” mysticism. He marvels at the human mind, at human emotions, at human aesthetics, at human instincts, at the brain which embodies them and the deep, deep mysteries that encompass the relationship between all this and the evolution of life itself; at the “nature” of existence itself.
That we can’t discuss “the nature of existence” without seeming to project as “metaphysicians” is probably true. But then that’s the point. Everything coming into existence out of nothing at all is kind of, well, spooky. It is baffling beyond anything we can think up empirically. Go ahead, try. But: This doesn’t mean it is beyond the language of science and philosophy of course. And I do believe the explanation is entirely empirical myself. But: That just brings me back around to an empirical reality that is reconciled with human autonomy. It doesn’t seem feasable to me. It seems human autonomy must be an illusion if the brain is the sort of matter that unfolded before the advent of self-conscious matter. In any event, trying to capture all this through logic is like going out into a field with a butterfly net and trying to capture the atmosphere.
It’s all, well, a bit weird, Dude!
Back to morality and dasein:
iambiguous wrote:
[i]I am merely pointing out that what we value morally and politically is rooted in history and culture and in the particular experiences we all have as children. Dasein is not difficult to grasp. We are all “thrown” at birth into a paricular confluence of demographic variables. We are indoctrinated for years to believe certain things are true and certain things are false. We don’t create a persona, others create it for us.
And all philosophy can do is speculate on what we can know for certain about these fabricated values and what will instead always be buried in the “inner child of the past”. Among other things, that’s commom sense. We all have different experiences as we acquire a “sense of self”. What then can philosophy distill down to good and bad, right and wrong, true and false.
[/i]
Try as I might, I can’t make a intelligible connection between my point and your’s. How is my argument regarding the relationship between dasein, human identity and moral/political claims not reasonable?
Cite the passage where I accused applied ethicists of being useless. I merely suggested any application of ethics must be situated out in the world existentially. And in turn pertaining always to particular circumstantial contexts and viewed from the vantage points of particular daseins.
Sigh…
If only I had a dollar for every time I have been accused of saying something I did not in fact say!
I don’t throw up my hands and insist it is all hopeless. Instead, I try to persuade folks that “settling” moral issues should revolve around moderation, negociation and compromise. That, in other words, no one has ever succeeded in settling any moral issue philosophically.
iambiguous wrote:
Some folks say, “if you want to see an ongoing Holocaust right now look no further than the thousands upon thousands of unborn babies that are slaughtered each year in abortion clinics!”. To them this is nothing less than cold blooded premeditated murder.
Yes, this is point of view I happen to share myself. But that’s all it can ever be a point of view.
One can easily counter this argument by pointing out it is not rational to interject at any particular point in a pregnancy and say, “before, not human…after, human”.
The bottom line? Not a single one of us ever became who we are today without first having passed through all stages in a pregnancy. Human life, the pro-life folks insist, is an integral [and wholly integrated] biological continuum from conception until death.
And there is nothing inherently irrational about that point of view. That is why, regarding the abortion issue, I say abortion is the killing of a human being and that it must be made available to all women. How do I reconcile this? I don’t. In fact I can’t. That to me is what makes abortion such a tragedy. If we allow it it means killing innocent human beings. But, if we don’t, it means forcing women to give birth against their wishes. Both consequences are, in my view, miscarrages of justice. So the only thing we can all strive for is to make abortions as rare as possible.
Yes, I believe this is a reasonable distinction. But the folks who disagree are able to accummulate their own reasons. And without an omnisicent point of view able to establish definitively the most rational argument of all we are left as always to altercate incessantly over who is right and who is wrong.
Or, as Bob Dylan once put it, “you’re right from your side and I’m right from mine.”
Offensive to me too. But no less impregnable to those who make them. Without God we are on our own in establishing rules of behavior. And in my view that is true whether you accept it or not. I quote for example human history to date. Where, once again, every behavior has already been rationalized.
I couldn’t agree more. As long as we eschew particular issues out in the world and down on the ground there is nothing we can’t solve philosophically. We simply line words up into premises and insist the premises are true. Then we line up the premises and insist the conclusions are true in turn.
It’s being done all the time, isn’t it?
After all, there’s nothing beyond the reach of words up on the sky-hooks.
I don’t say that. You say I say that. I only suggest that without God [an onmniscient and omnipotent juggernaut] there are mere mortals who obviate their own lack of omniscience and omnipotence by subsuming all human behavior in their own rendition of Right and Wrong.
I agree with Faust about your general style of response, except I would go further to suggest that it often leads you to miss the overarching point. My main point has always been that you don’t know what “rationalization” means. You have some idiosyncratic way of using the term that you don’t understand and aren’t clear about. It’s what leads you to put together redundant phrases like “necessarily valid”.
As follows:
1.
.
I also gave you a list of very clear issues where moral progress has been made. And you said, quite meaninglessly, that none of that was moral progress. I assume I’ve won this argument, because the conclusion you were led to is absurd. And now, a few sentences later, you blatantly contradict yourself again. You write…
This is blatantly contradicted by the following quotes…
I looked up the word “rationalization” in the Philosophy Pages dictionary and it wasn’t there. So let’s stick to definition commonly used in dictionaries of psychological terms:
To devise self-satisfying but incorrect reasons for (one’s behavior)
I merely tweak this by suggesting there are no necessarily correct reasons for doing what we do. Not in our moral and political interactions with others. And the word “necessarily” is necessary [in my view] because behaviors can be deemed correct or valid if folks share the same ethical narrative. But if the narratives come into conflict are there philosophers able to say which one is truer if one is to be thought of as in compliance with the rules of logic? Or, further, to propose the optimally rational and ethical behavior?
iambiguous wrote:
Cite the passage where I accused applied ethicists of being useless. I merely suggested any application of ethics must be situated out in the world existentially. And in turn pertaining always to particular circumstantial contexts and viewed from the vantage points of particular daseins.
Again:
Cite the passage where I accused applied ethicists of being useless:
Because I argue no applied ethicists have been able to establish definitively and beyond all doubt which human behaviors reflect the most rational and ethical trajectory, does not argue in turn that applied ethics should be abandoned as meaningless or useless.
Again:
I merely suggested any application of ethics must be situated out in the world existentially. And in turn pertaining always to particular circumstantial contexts and viewed from the vantage points of particular daseins.
I already responded to this:
Again, you confuse political narratives with deontological ethics. I happen to embrace these movements as progressive myself. But they are not necessarily either more or less progressive than the opposite approach. Just ask the “pro-life” folks about stem cells or conservatives about traditional roles for women or the folks who insist that hanging should be brought back—public hangings smack dab in the middle of the town square. And attendance by citizens will be seen as a moral duty.
In turn I asked you to bring these arguments down to earth by focusing on the abortion issue as a manifestation of what some insist is mass murder:
[i]Okay, let’s instantiate this. Some folks say, “if you want to see an ongoing Holocaust right now look no further than the thousands upon thousands of unborn babies that are slaughtered each year in abortion clinics!”. To them this is nothing less than cold blooded premeditated murder.
So, is this an irrational point of view? Is having an abortion irrational? Is having an abortion immoral?[/i]
How, philosophically, do we determine “progress” here?
Yes, and this sort of behavior results precisely from draconian extremist ideologies that refuse to see the world as anything other than black vs. white, good vs. evil, us vs. them.
And, sure, some behaviors are deemed so outrageous by so many people [including me] that “moderation, negociation and comnpromise” are virtually out of the question. As Woody Allen suggested in Manhattan sometimes the only way to confront Nazis is with baseball bats.
Yet for the overwhelming preponderance of moral and political conflicts that rend us, democracy and the rule of law are the way to go. And that often involves moderation, negociation and compromise.
Though, of course, out in the real world, political and economic power also play a crucial role. We are watching that unfold right now in Egypt.
So let me get this straight - by bringing this down to earth, we are talking about mass murder - murder being wrongful killing, and wrong being “morally wrong” - but we are not to invoke any actual philosophical (moral) issues in discussing the moral wrong that many insist abortion is?
I shouldn’t have to repeat them.
In #1, You say there is no way to decide in a particular situation what is the moral course of action.
In #2, You say that no moral progress has ever been made.
In #3, You suggest that being moral is impossible.
You denied that these three points amount to “ethicists being useless”—and that suggests to me that you are proceeding in bad faith. You also related these comments to some very particular moral issues, like slavery, genocide, minimum wages, etc. To lay claim to any one of points #1-3 in the context of the particular issues you mentioned (slavery, genocide, minimum wages) is absurd. So, you need to stop, reflect, and realize what your ideas have been reduced to. From here, you can only go up—and that’s good. A few tweaks here and there, that’s it. But it requries that you stop arguing in bad faith.
This is the end for me. Once having reduced your position to absurdity, there is no benefit for either of us in continuing. I’m leaving you with a few recommendations about where to go from here, and how to piece your arguments back together from the destruction I have wreaked upon them.
Be clear about what ‘rationalizing’ is. Whenever you come up with reasons for your actions, you are rationalizing. There are better and worse reasons for action. And sometimes people act irrationally. Don’t think that “anything can be rationalized”, or that all rationalizations are on equal footing.
Just admit that in the course of history there has been moral progress. I’m not sure what your goal is in meaninglessly trying to call it political.
Study Kant and the neo-Kantians. There are some confusions present.
If you want to be a relativist or a nihilist, then just come out of the closet already—stop being timid about it.
Murder, of course, is a legal term. But most who insist abortion is murder do so because they construe the murder of the unborn to be immoral.
Is it?
Now, I am certainly not suggesting we cannot bring “actual philosophical [moral] issues” into the discussion. I am suggesting only that how we frame these issues is never enough to demonstrate conclusively whether our own arguments constitute “progress” in this on-going debate.
I am suggesting that Kant recognized this himself by positing a transcendental point of view that allows us to eclipse the existential narratives of mere mortals.
If it’'s a legal term and abortion is legal then they can’t be claiming that it is murder.
“Progress” is a loaded term. “Change” is not. The arguments have brought abut change in that abortion is now legal, and that change - have you read the USSC decision yet? - that change was in part justified by moral arguments. So the facts on the ground have changed, yes. Nothing will change the fact that a diverse and educated populous will have differing opinions as to whether that change is progress or not.
Kant was an idiot. Why are we talking about Kant? Has anyone ever invoked Kant on this issue? Besides you?
Look - the negotiation you are talking about already happens - in the political arena.
And the fact of the matter is that moral considerations are a part of that. And those moral considerations are, in part, framed by philosophy. What in the world is the problem? What is your point? What do you actually specifically propose?
#1 I [and Kant and others] suggest that absent a transcendental point of view [i.e. a perspective said to be both omniscient and omnipotent] there is no way for a mere mortal to assert [and then to demonstrate objectively] that his or her own point of view is the most rational and ethical manner in which evaluate and judge any particular human behavior.
#2 I said that what one person views as moral progress another may see as anything but. But my emphasis is always on what I perceive as the inability of any one individual to demonstrate how their own moral values must be embraced by all lest they be construed as both irrational and immoral. Again, the Objectivist Syndrome.
#3 I suggest this instead: If someone believes she is behaving both rationally and morally than, from her point of view, she is. But she cannot demonstrate how all others must agree with her or again be deemed irrational and immoral. Which is basically what you are saying regarding those who don’t share your own views on what either does or does not constitute moral progress.
Some issues are however clearly more amenable to consensus than are others.
But even if everyone agrees a particular behavior is immoral that does not make it necessarily so. To believe that is to put one’s moral values on par with the laws of physics.
Yes, I get this a lot. They simply declare themselves the “winner” and move on to new arguments to “conquer”.
I’m hiding nowhere. With respect to moral and political values I have always embraced situational ethics. And I am a nihilist in the sense that sans God I do not believe any mere mortal can sit in as a reasonable facsimile when judging other people’s behaviors. Instead, I suggest that mere mortals acquire a sense of identity and a sense of right and wrong from within the historical, cultural and experiential contexts in which their lives actually unfold.
And that this is always subject to change as we bump into new experiences, new relationships and new points of view.
But for most who embrace moral absolutes no real distinction is made between morality and the law. If something is immoral then perforce it should be against the law.
And this can take the form of either religious [transcendental] or secular [ideological] liturgies. The crucial point being this: it is assmed that right and wrong behavior can be clearly distinguished. And since this is the case those who refuse to do the right thing must be punished.
This is the mentality of authoritarianism.
All of this is a reasonable assessment in my view. But “progess” was a word we invented precisely to suggest we can behave in a more rational and ethical manner. But on issue after issue after issue [as you note] both sides claim progress when the law merely changes. In other words, as long as it changes to coincide with their own existential sense of right and wrong.
But, as others have noted here, some behaviors—genocide, child abuse, rape—are clearly repugnant to almost all of us. And I believe our collective reaction to them [programmed into us in part by human biology] is as close as we are ever likely to get to “objectivity” here.
But, as I conjectured in turn, that does not make those complex mental, emotional and psychological reactions anywhere near the equivalent of the objectivity attained by mathematics and science regarding the laws of physics.
Kant was anything but an idiot. In the philosophical community alone he is recognized by many to be nothing short of a genius. The manner in which he approached and then attempted to integrate rationalism and empiricism alone is seen as a remarkable feat by many.
And what I “invoked” was speculation regarding the relationship between Kant, ethics and God. As have those like Christine M. Korsgaard in the OP.
But the political arena exists only because sooner or later moral conflicts must be resolved. And these resolutions generally revolve around those able to enforce a particular existential [i.e. political] agenda.
Now, in some respects this involves philosophical themes broached initially by Plato and Aristotle—and later the philosophers of the Enllightenment; but in other respects it is broached through the raw, naked use of power. Things folks like Marx and Engels integrated into the organic [historical] evolution of political economy.
When it comes to moral absolutes, I’m on your side. When you seem to claim that absolutes are all that morality is and can be, I am not.
But right an wrong can be determined in ways that you have not accounted for. And those values don’t have to be minutely distinguished. Look - your theme here is that moral authoritarianism is wrong. And you have stated why you think so. That’s not necessarily an edict - it’s an invitation to a conversation. Social Contract Theory, in some iterations, is not so different from that. But if it doesn’t result in some rights and wrongs, it’s not a moral theory. So what is this value you argue for? That moral absolutism is wrong, that is. Is it not moral? You can appeal to purely practical considerations, but so can a moral theory.
No it’s not. Progress implies getting closer to a goal. Reason is a method and not a goal in itself - except to a rationalist. And you keep conjoining “rational” with “ethical”. Christian morality did not adopt reason as an integral part of morality until the Middle Ages. The two ideas are related, but there are times when you have to treat them separately. Your argument borders on strawman here - you set up thinkers like Kant as the model of morality and then knock him down for being a rationalist. No shit.
I did not note that. Usually, only one side claims progress. And please stop using “existential” indiscriminately. A christian would hardly know what you’re talking abut.
Nothing is “objective”.
He’s still an idiot.
He’s easy pickin’s. What’s too easy is to pretend that he represents all of moral thinking.
Nyet. Laws don’t resolve moral conflicts. They regulate them.
But I argue just the opposite: that morality is rooted in dasein; and that dasein in turn is rooted in ever evolving historical, cultural and experiential contexts.
That, in other words, morality is existential. At least when one takes it off the sky-hooks and brings it down to earth.
As long as any conversations that Social Contract Theorists elicit make frequent references to actual social, political and economic interaction down on the ground, I welcome them with open arms.
iambiguous wrote:
All of this is a reasonable assessment in my view. But “progess” was a word we invented precisely to suggest we can behave in a more rational and ethical manner.
But for many the “goal” here is precisely to achieve a legal framework that reflects what they insist is the most rational— and therefore ethical—manner in which to propel human social, political and economic interaction onward into the future.
Ironically, however, the chief culprits here are not those who see the future as the noble quest for human Virtue but what some see instead as the ignoble quest for wealth and power. Wealth and power are what make the world go round. Both for the better and for the worse. In the revolving doors between Washington and New York morality is paid lip service only. It is [perhaps] being paid lip service now by those in power in Egypt. In the end, a new “alliance” there [in conjunction with New York and Washington] may continue to pursue business as usual. Which means literally business as usual. Again, for the better and for the worse.
Morality is bought and paid for all the time across the global economy. It’s just rarely acknowledged as such. Bob Dylan once summed it up thusly: Democracy don’t rule the world/You better get that through your head/This world is ruled by violence/But I guess that’s better left unsaid
The strawman for those in power is often morality itself. And it’s easy enough to knock down. They do this by setting it aside “in reality”. They pay the proper lip service to it of course but then follow through with the far more ubiquitous golden rule: them that’s got the gold rules. At least with respect to economic and foreign policy.
Only in the realm of “social issues” is morality allowed to be more than skin deep. And even here only in the Western democracies by and large. But regarding the “value voter” issues, the gap between reason and emotion and [in some instances] the libido is particularly problematic. As Kant may have grasped himself had he not spent almost his entire life going around and around in the same circles in Königsberg.
iambiguous wrote:
But on issue after issue after issue [as you note] both sides claim progress when the law merely changes. In other words, as long as it changes to coincide with their own existential sense of right and wrong.
Sure, one side claims progress at a time but the crucial point is that change is change is change. It happens all the time historically. But how one reacts to that change is largely existential.
But you do not grasp the meaning of that word as I do. Any more than a Christian would. But being a Christian is profoundly rooted in history and culture—in the experiential dasein ever refabricating the variables embedded in contingency, chance and change. But dasein is another word we share little in common regarding.
I am curious. What does “objective” mean as opposed to objective? To me the extent to which something is not just an existential point of view is the extent to which it can be communicated objectively. Again, math and science. Verifiable empirical truths—facts—that transcend dasein.
Sure, Hume made it clear that nothing is entirely objective. That’s why Kant [and others] had to invent a transcendental point of view to reinvent morality. But we have no way in which to confirm that beyond the intellectual assumptions that unfold tautologically in their world of words.
iambiguous wrote:
[i]…the political arena exists only because sooner or later moral conflicts must be resolved. And these resolutions generally revolve around those able to enforce a particular existential agenda.
Moral resolutions are in the mind of the beholder. If someone believes their own moral agenda is reflected in the law then for them the conflict has been resolved. Then the law changes and those on the opposite end of the continuum embrace the new law as a resolution.
But it is true that once one comes to grasp this dialectically as existential narratives that ever come into conflict then indeed the law is the great regulator. And behind the regulators are those in power.
In Egypt right now the shifting narratives will play themselves out over the coming weeks and months. Is this a true paradigm shift re the Iranian Revolution of 1979? Or will the rich and the powerful [at home and abroad] merely shuffle the pieces on the board and reconfigure the plutocracy?
At least we both agree here that, “power is given”.
Yeah, dude. I know. I’m not on your side in using the term “dasein”, because for english speakers, it’s an affectation, but the rest, yeah.
I just wish you would actually fucking do that once. With all your histrionics about Kant, I have never seen a counter-argument. If you could just give one example that’s not merely a question, it would be helpful.
How is dasein not both substantive and substantial in speculating about the ingredients that go into the making of any particular sense of identity?
What is the nature of dasein? Da-sein is being there as opposed to being somewhere else. And as such this can have a profound impact on how you come to view your life.
And it starts at birth. We come into a world where for a number years others will tell us who we are and how we should view the world around us. We are nothing less than indoctrinated to ingest a particular narrative regarding how we ought to think, feel and behave in our social, political and economic interactions with others. And this indoctrination is all the more effective because those who do the brainwashing invariably do so out of love!
Human identity is wrapped existentially around the ever evolving relationship between highly problematic variables embedded in assessments of “you”, assessments of “I” and assessments of “him” or “her” or “them”.
The weakest link, however, being the manner in which most of us come to view “I” as the least problematic. Indeed, few give serious thought at all to just how enormously problematic this particular prejudice–our “story”—is. Why? Because the more you think about how you came to think about who you think you are—how fortuitously it all fits together and how fortuitously it can all begin to fall apart—the less certain you are regarding how you have come to view and assess the lives of others. Or in how you imagine they have come to assess you.
For example, in Egypt today any number of prefabricated identities are being tested as never before. And it is often in these historical ruptures that “I” is most readily exposed for the existential contraption it is.
iambiguous wrote:
That, in other words, morality is existential. At least when one takes it off the sky-hooks and brings it down to earth.
I have done so on numerous threads. With respect to abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia etc. I examined the manner in which my moral claims are rooted existentially in my experiences and my relationships and my encounters with new points of view. I reflected on the manner in which my sense of identity after a year in Vietnam hardly recognized the manner in which I viewed myself before going over there.
Why don’t you situate your own sense of self out in the world. How is it not dasein?
Using the word “dasein” is pure pomp and pagentry. For all purposes, it just means, “some f—ing guy”, …or “human being” / “personhood”, if you prefer.
I’m surprised the nihilist cares so much about his appearance.
There’s something very contradictory in everything the gentleman (that I suppose to be a nihilist) says. He wants to tell us that “morality is situational”, and so on. But he’s telling us this as if from a bird’s eye view outside any particular situation—and not from his particular situation. From where I stand not everything is justifiable—contrary to what the gentleman nihilist says.
yes, we’re taught morals, by parents, aunts, uncles, teachers, scout leaders, sunday school teachers. You bet. You can’t escape this, but you don’t begin to become a philosopher until you get over it emotionally. You “grow up” - philosophically , which your friend Magee surely hasn’t done, and which you clearly haven’t done. That’s not a personal insult - I mean you are looking in on philosophy very much from the outside. I have invited you in - you persistently decline.
Yes. Such is life. You have to get over yourself. Not a lot. Just a little.
That’s because they are all wrapped up in the notion that perspective is somehow a bad thing. For all your railing against “objective rationalism” you are still hypnotised by it.
Perspective is all you’ve got. You can work with it or whine about it. Your choice.
No, you haven’t. You’ve complained about Kant and told us that you wish we could deal with this stuff within existential dasein, or something. You wish people could compromise, but you haven’t made the case as to why, how or to what end.
Please state here a single moral claim you have made. Just a sentence. Make it simple so even I don’t miss it. You have made claims about morality, but I can’t find a single moral claim. Perhaps I’m just thick.
Let’s stick with the plain english version. I’m about as out in the world as you get. I am a strict materialist, atheist, Nietzschean, non-epistemological dullard. I view all morality as the result of a social contract. People make it all up, for a reason, but it’s all made up. By “us”. What more do you want?
From where you are—precisely. And “from where you are” is always situated in a particular historical and cultural and experiential context. And each such context evolves over time ever embedded in contingency, chance and change.
And my description of dasein above—how is it not reasonble in regards to this?
And yet again I remind you we can discuss all this more intelligibly by bringing it down to earth.
To wit:
Some folks say that abortion is immoral, others say it is not. How then would we go about determining the extent to which each individual’s moral claim is merely a reflection of his or her own point of view [rooted in dasein] or is instead universally applicable to all?
Because that is largely my point. There are empirically objective things we can know about abortion. And they can be denoted by and to all. And there are other things that can only be connoted as an existential point of view.
And in my view [and that’s all it is] moral and political claims cannot be denoted objectively.
Unless, of course, you believe they can.
And I don’t.
So, let’s discuss our own particular views on the ethics of abortion and see just how far the logic of philosophy can take us.
Yes, we do grow older and acquire an increasingly autonomous sense of self. That is true. But our views on moral and political issues are ever situated circumstantially.
Let’s take a moral/political conflict that is in the news right now: the U.S. budget. The yearly focus that brings out the liberals and the conservatives ever debating what the role of government ought to be in our lives.
Thus to paraphrase the point I raised with Monooq:
Some folks say that big government is immoral, others say it is not. How then would we go about determining the extent to which each individual’s moral claim is merely a reflection of his or her own point of view [rooted in dasein] or is instead universally applicable to all?
How, to use your own terminology, would a philosopher skilled with the necessary tools [a philosophical “insider”] frame this conflict? Frame it in other words so that it is discussed in the most rational manner?
Those who embrace moral objectivity—ecclesiastic [God] or ideological [Reason]—are certainly wrapped up in it. They insist above all else that “perspective” is irrelevant. There is only one right way to view one’s moral and political duty.
And that is what existentialists seeks to deconstruct. At best there are existentialists who argue that one must behave “authentically”. In other words, by forging one’s own way in the world—and not by anchoring right and wrong to one or another rendition of either/or. But they are not the ones who whine about people like you and I.
I don’t agree. Look around the world. In nation after nation embracing democracy and the rule of law moderation, negociation and compromise are the exceptions only regarding those issues in which wealth and power prevail. And even here some moderation, negociation and compromise play an important role.
Again, take for example the annual huffing and puffing that revolves around the U.S. budget. Which is basically huffing and puffing about what the role of government ought to be in our lives. In other words, many liberals and conservatives view this as a moral issue. Some want government stripped down to the bare bones: providing courts to settle legal disputes and generating a military/police force to protect the populace from enemies at home and abroad. Others, however, want government greatly expanded. They embrace socialist solutions.
But again: How then would we go about determining the extent to which each individual’s moral claim [here] is merely a reflection of his or her own point of view [rooted in dasein] or is instead universally applicable to all?
I noted above:
I fully support the right of all women to have access to safe and affordable abortions. But I don’t view those who disagree with me as perforce unreasonable. Likewise when a pro-lifer insist abortions must end even in cases of women raped by their own father [using the reason it is not the unborn’s fault] I can’t demonstrate how this argument is necessarily wrong.
Regarding abortion, I make the claim that abortion is the killing of a human being. And I make the claim that all women should have access to safe and affordable abortions. How do I reconcile this? I don’t. Why? Because I can’t. We simply live in a world where women forced to give birth against their will could not possibly achieve equal rights with men. So abortion is a necessary tragedy. We take the life of the unborn and that is unjust in my view. But if we force women to give birth that is unjust too. And that is the reality of the world we live in. These conflicting moral “goods” [viewed from the conflicting moral vantage points of daseins] come into conflict over and again on issue after issue after issue.
iambiguous wrote:
Why don’t you situate your own sense of self out in the world.
Nothing. That is basically a description of myself. We just use different words to say [pretty much] the same thing about Kant, God and ethics.