[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNUU-L7oI74[/youtube]
We’re still miles apart. Jim either plays the stock market or he does not. From my frame of mind, this either can or cannot be established/demonstrated objectively.
Whereas establishing/demonstrating that playing the stock market is the embodiment of either vice or virtue is still just a point of view/political prejudice.
It is the embodiment of this age-old debate: economicshelp.org/blog/5002/ … apitalism/
Again, both sides can make reasonable arguments that more or less counter the arguments of those on the other side, but no one side can make an argument that makes all the other side’s points go away.
Well, using “ordinary language” to encompass this “ordinary behavior” anyway.
Thus when you note…
…you are definitely missing my point. But no more so [no doubt] than I am missing yours.
If you look up the meaning of the words “play the stock market”, Jim is either doing that or he is not. If you look up the meaning of the words “vice” and “virtue”, however, it won’t tell you if Jim’s behavior is either one or the other.
Let’s just say we think about these things in very different ways. You may be correct “technically” as a “serious philosopher”, but that doesn’t make the arguments of those who embrace or reject capitalism go away. Not out in the real world anyway.
Or so it seems to me.
Yes, but the agreement revolves precisely around the fact that we invented the words “play the stock market” to describe Jim’s precise behavior. That is what he is doing.
And we invented the words “vice” and “virtue” precisely because there are behaviors that some argue for while others argue against.
But what we haven’t invented yet is the argument that resolves these conflicting value judgments once and for all.
Or, at any rate, if that argument does in fact exist, I have not come across it yet.
Basically, what this amounts to [to me] is noting that, while we have not yet been able to establish the morality of abortion in the manner in which we have established the fact of abortion, we might be able to some day.
And I agree.
But I don’t see how that is possible given the very nature of the conflicting goods here:
If the “good” becomes the birth of the baby, then there are going to be women who are forced to give birth. If the “good” becomes the woman’s right to choose, then there are going to be dead babies.
What would an argument able to square this particular circle even begin to sound like?
And while the morality of abortion may not be something one can “witness” directly one can in fact witness the consequences of forcing women to give birth…and the consequences of shredding a fetus. And thus we need laws to deal with that. So, using the tools of philosophy, how would we go about concocting the optimal laws? You tell me. But tell me in a way that you are perhaps able to establish your reasoning as more than just a personal opinion or a political prejudice that is rooted in dasein.
More to the point though, why don’t you ask them why they care? Perhaps because existentially they have invested their own particular “I” in either seeing justice be done in carrying out the execution or in staying it.
Conflicting goods.
Again, what intrigues me is in imagining you defending VO to them…just hours before the actual execution itself. Of what practical use is it to either side? How does it make the anger and the pain – their emotional and psychological reactions – go away? At best it can offer up an intellectual contraption that might succeed in nudging their frame or mind. But this doesn’t make the conflicting goods go away. And it doesn’t change the fact that how they react to this particular execution is rooted largely in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein.
And the distinction you make between being a moral nihilist or an ethical nihilist is largely lost on me. I just don’t see how it really puts much of a dent in my dilemma above. After all, is aborting the baby or allowing the woman to choose more in sync with Nietzsche’s “natural ethical order”. Is executing the prisoner or staying his death more in sync with Nietzsche’s “natural ethical order”.
In fact, I’m trying to imagine Nietzsche reacting to the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. And I can’t help but imagine that he would gag listening to someone like, say, Satyr address them. 
This one is specifically for Zoot - an argument for the selfiestick or ‘extension arm’.
Somewhere in the video I give the spoken argument. You can actually sort of hear it, too.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz8CzbYIfcU[/youtube]
I suspect this is circular reasoning. It’s like saying: “Surely the good cannot be something the consequence of which is forcing people against their will?!” Or: “Surely the good cannot be something the consequence of which is dead babies?!” Sure it can! After all, why couldn’t it?
You agree that we might be able to establish the morality of abortion one day. Well, then we ought to structure society so, not that it forces people against their will as little as possible, or that as few babies die as possible, but that the quest for wisdom concerning such things–philosophy–is furthered as much as possible!
So long as the morality or immorality of abortion has not been established, the people who claim it as more than their personal preference are not to be taken seriously.
First off, I think you’re evading the question. I’m asking you, someone who spends quite a lot of time on discussions at philosophy fora, not people on the street overcome with emotion. I don’t take the latter seriously as rational minds, at least not then and there.
“Ethical” is just the word Berkowitz uses to distinguish between the morality Nietzsche rejects and the morality (the “ethics”) he espouses. The morality he rejects is the one that, among other things, considers forcing a woman to give birth immoral because of pity or compassion for “that poor woman” and considers killing a baby immoral because of pity or compassion for “that poor baby”. Here’s something I edited out of post # 2569410, which is on page 3 of this thread, immediately after posting it:
The phrase “opposite point of view”, in combination with what Jakob has suggested about how important these issues, or people’s concerns with these issues, are to you, suggests to me a neglect of other alternatives. If total concern with the life of the baby is symbolised by A and total concern with the freedom of the mother is symbolised by B, then the midpoint of the line segment AB would symbolise equal concern with both; whereas we could envision an equilateral triangle ABC on which C would symbolise a total lack of concern with either. Moreover, not only are there numerous possible reasons for such concern–e.g., compassion for the mother and/or the child, and fear of one’s God and/or congregation–, but even if, out of these two examples, we uncynically pick the former, then that compassion could still be compassion for what Nietzsche calls the creator rather than for what he calls the creature in man. Thus I, for example, consider predominant concern with the poor, helpless child or the poor, helpless mother an instance of what I’ve called victim morality–which I associate with what Dawkins has called “the moralities that are accepted among modern people, among 21st century people”. Even if we consent to accept utilitarianism–which, again, regardless of the immensity of possible different views on what would further the average happiness the most, I’d consider a step forward, simply because it would get us past the immensity of different possible alternatives to the utilitarian answer to the question “what is good?”–; even if we consent to accept utilitarianism, I say, there is still the question “whose happiness: the creature’s or the creator’s?” Thus aphorism 225 of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, in combination with his concept of “pessimism of strength”, suggests to me also a hedonism, a eudaimonism, and a utilitarianism of strength. Under such an ism of strength, at least the antinatalist argument, for example, that one should not bring children into the world, because they are bound to suffer, is rendered irrelevant, as it’s not at all about the suffering–or joy–of the creature in man, but solely about the joy of the creator; and the suffering of the former may well even enhance the joy of the latter!
I personally find this phrase, “the taking of a human life”, kind of offensive. As if the life of an unborn baby were in the same league as, say, my life! I will again quote Harry Neumann:
“In Thucydides (I) a Spartan king, Archidamus, agrees that by nature all men are equal. But he insists that as mere human beings they are little better than lazy beasts. What makes them something which counts, according to Archidamus, is twenty-three years (from 7-30) of Spartan higher education, that is, twenty-three years of the harshest military training.” (Neumann, op.cit., Appendix.)
In Sparta, children could be aborted post-natally. To put a being’s value in its sentience, its mere ability to suffer, would have been considered laughable–as Nietzsche says, weak women and even slaves can achieve virtuosity in that (Gay Science 125). But, speaking of women: if a woman can choose whereas an unborn baby cannot, the woman is human–not merely human but quite loftily human–whereas the baby is not, and the choice should therefore be rather obvious. If we take the unborn baby’s life, the woman will still be alive; if however we take the woman’s freedom to choose, neither the woman nor the baby has the ability to choose. Now if the baby is female, she will grow up to be a woman, meaning she will not be able to choose then, either. If the baby is male, on the other hand, then our taking away the woman’s freedom to choose will be compensated for if and only if the baby turns out well enough as to be capable of choosing. Even supposing, however, that the baby will always turn out well enough, we get the following grid:
\ M F
C 1 1
L 1 0
M = the baby is male
F = the baby is female
C = we choose for “choice”
L = we choose for “life”
0 = our choice results in a net loss
1 = our choice results in a net balance
And this is of course supposing that the “choice” will be to abort the baby. If the “choice” is to keep the baby, we instead get the following grid:
\ M F
C 2 2
L 1 0
2 = our choice results in a net win
Paradoxically, however, this does not mean that one should always keep the baby (because 2 2 is better than 1 1): for then it would not be a matter of choice. Thus “pro-choice” people should also be pro the freedom to choose to be “pro-life”. “If you want (others) to give birth no matter what, that’s fine!” Though in a non-egalitarian society like Sparta, of course, there was no choice; the women had to breed and the men had to train, to learn discipline. One always makes sacrifices…
Thanks dude, but I think it would be a better idea for you to keep both hands on those handlebars (for your sake and everyone around you) and just have faith that I can figure out how to use a ‘selfiestick’.
I’m just suggesting that you use one, not explaining how. Thanks for the concern, but that is not a filmmakers attitude.
LOL. Sure, taking risks, but calculated risks. In this case, not very calculated. What if a pedestrian stepped out in front of you? The headlines read: man demonstrates how to use selfiestick on scooter and kills two in collision.
What can I say to that…
youtube.com/watch?v=x0YDuh1aGyY
Yeah I’m trying to figure out your gig, Biguous. I’m not sure if you believe there may be objective, rational criteria that can be used to determine the goodness or badness of a moral act, and are on some kind of a forum quest to find it, or if you are convinced there is no such thing, and just enjoy pestering people who claim there is. And at your age it seems even more odd to me; you aren’t a professional philosopher so you’re not making any money off this nonsense… I guess this must be a hobby of yours then? How and why do you enjoy this, if I may ask.
Zoot check my definition of philosophy in Kris’ thread. Thatll give you an answer. Basically philosophy doesnt offer a man it approaches a choice. Certainly it doesnt offer him money!!
Here’s Pezer calling out the scaredycats among us to recognize their predator natures and try on a more dangerous (i.e. philosophical) ethics.
Philosophy isn’t a profession, it’s a life, a way of living. As if one could only “enjoy” philosophy if one were making money off it…what “nonsense”…BTW, you never got back to me, Zoot.
I agree. Philosophy is not about ‘use’ in any traditional sense of the word, rather it investigates, among other things, that very concept (e.g. in the form of vo).
New video. Pezer gave me the good chills.
Wittgenstein’s Rude Awakening
(about that Ancient Cowardice…)
Zizek once said the task of philosophy is not to solve problems but to redefine them. He uses an example of a asteroid approaching the earth… a very REAL problem… one that you cannot ‘play philosophical tricks’, as he put it, to solve; “the threat is a very real threat”.
The same line of thinking is found in W when he says that while philosophy is indeed a kind of activity, it leaves the world exactly as it found it, untouched, or complicates it. It does not solve anything, and the vast majority of its alleged problems are results of its own activity… internal linguistic problems as a byproduct of the misuse of language.
Now you have a good point, Cross. There is no God out there to say “this word shall meaneth this”, but there is a contextual history to the uses of words in every language, and what every language has in common is a general form of rule following… the terms through which a word can be made meaningful. If you say “my consciousness is not my body”, I haven’t a clue what you mean, but not only that, such a thesis cannot even be false it is so confused. But if you say “he is conscious”, or “be conscious of what you are doing”, or “he lost consciousness”, I can examine my immediate context and know precisely what you mean… not by what you mean, but by what is happening, what is done. I can be ‘shown’ the meaning of these statements.
The idea of the language game and its sister concept of family resemblance admits that when we communicate we often cross boundaries set by rule following, and this complicates the certainty of meaning.
Here W realizes that his original theory put forth in the tractatus that language mirrors the logical, atomic facts of the world is incomplete, and that a logically perfect language is impossible.
It is difficult to grasp this idea that philosophy is an idle activity… that the majority of what it calls problems are not problems at all… not problems ‘out there’ in the world… problems that exist only on the board upon which the words (chess pieces) are moved. The game is consistent with itself but it is not embedded in the world as the natural sciences are. You might think of it as a kind of emergent epiphenomena in language which grows out of real material and social relations as a kind of harmless weed.
Maybe you might accept the notion that W was not trying to tell us what philosophy is, but what philosophy is not, what it cannot be, where it does not belong, what it is qualified to do, and how exactly it works within the defined parameters of the language games it produces.
In my personal experiences on philosophy fora I have seen discourse between people that I was certain could not be truly understood by those involved in it. There was no doubt in my mind that what I was watching was nonsense, and yet they go on and on and on oblivious to this fact. Ah, but there is the magic of philosophy, this mystical aspect W attributes to this form of activity. Philosophy glides along beside the real world but never makes contact with any of it.
Have you read any of Marx and Engels critique of philosophy? If you haven’t, and want to, don’t have in your mind that this is some kind of communist interpretation so that your trust in the critique is distorted or lost. The insights that Marx and Engels had stand on their own merits regardless of any political association to these ideas that might be made.
I’m at 1:44 in your video and thought I’d post this before continuing. I’ll finish the video in a moment.
Hmm. I don’t know how to make my own point any clearer:
Bring your “third axiom” – in fact bring them all – down to earth. How is/are it/they applicable when one of your behaviors does not sit well with another because you value conflicting or contradictory things?
How does it work – work existentially – for all practical purposes?
How, for example, might it have been applicable when I was trying to mediate the conflict between John and Mary before Mary aborted their baby?
In other words, my “great problem” is really only a “personal problem”. It is applicable to me given the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
But it does not seem to be applicable to others.
Now, I am not here to argue that if it is not applicable to you, you are wrong. Let alone a “retard” as the folks at KT insist. On the contrary, as I noted to Zoot on another thread:
I see it basically as “win/win” for me. Either my arguments are able to stand the test of time or someone is actually able to assist me in yanking myself up out of what can be a truly cynical and pessimistic way in which to construe the existential relationship between identity, value judgments and political power.
With moral objectivists [or, in this case, with those who attach the word “ontology” to the word “value”] I ask them to demonstrate how my dilemma is not applicable to them.
Will you go there? Now, over the years, many objectivists have insisted that they have already gone there. Maybe. But, in my view, no where near in the manner in which I embedded my own dilemma re John and Mary. And, again, I start there because it was in this particular context that the first really big cracks in my own objectivist frame of mind began to appear.
But you label everyone who disagrees with you and you suggest that there is something wrong with them. 
I was speaking particularly about what I believe is Iambiguous’ case. I do not believe he is here to learn anything, nor that he believes he will ever find a solution to his conflict, nor that he is passionate about philosophy. I think he is here only because he likes to argue and prove people wrong… which is great fun, yes, but liking to argue with philosophy is not the same of loving philosophy.
On the other hand, granted that philosophy is largely bullshit, it loses nothing by being in the form of sophistry. How does one confuse what is already confused? So fuck it… use it to make some money. Use it as a means to something else.
No, it is reasoning in which, depending on the law of the land, a woman can be forced to give birth against her will, or the baby can be shredded to bits against its will.
But, since the baby is unable to communicate its will, there are those in the pro-life movement that do it for them.
Then what?
What we can’t have [out in the real world] is a political policy/law/social more in which the will of both are able to be sustained. It’s either one or the other. Thus, using the tools of philosophy, there does not seem to be an argument able to reconcile/resolve these conflicting goods. How does VO manage it – if not “ontologically”?
Yes, I am not here to argue that unless you share my argument you are wrong. I am here to entertain arguments that might lead me to believe that these conflicting goods might be rendered moot. But how is this possible unless we can create a world in which both pregnant women have the right to choose AND babies have the right to be born.
Again, how does VO begin to tackle this “out in the world” of actual flesh and blood pregnancies that are unwanted? Pregnancies that result from defective birth control devices or rape or incest.
And even women who choose abortion as just another form of birth control – what is the argument against those who root morality [in a Godless world] in their own self-interest? How is that necessarily irrational or unethical?
Take them as seriously as you must. But how does that make the conflicting goods go away? And how does that make the manner in which I construe dasein and political economy go away?
As though, with respect to questions like this, the subjunctive elements can be neatly split off from the purely “rational” assessment. Forget that it is your loved one about to be executed or that the condemned man murdered your beloved son or daughter. Forget that Mary is aborting your baby or that John will never be forced to give birth against his will. Let’s just be completely logical about it. As though the human brain itself is actually hard-wired to make this “neat” distinction.
So, just out of curiosity, how do you imagine Nietzsche reacting to the manner in which I construe the conflicting goods here? What would be consistent with his “natural ethical order”? You know, when it is crunch time and it is necessary to prescribe/proscribe behaviors here legislatively [politically].
How close to or far away from would his argument be with respect to what some encompass in the idea/ideal of a “philosopher-king”? Is VO itself in that vicinity?
Note to others:
More perspicuously [perhaps] please explain to me how this effectively addresses my point regarding the relationship between conflicting goods [re the morality of abortion] and the manner in which those in power might go about creating legislation that is embedded in the “right makes might” approach to morality. In other words, the optimal legal/political resolution?
Note to others:
Same here. What “on earth” does this really have to do with living “out in the world” as it is: one in which pregnant women are either able to choose abortion or babies are always brought to term? Knowing that we can never live in a world where both prevail.
What is the least cynical solution here?
And how would we go about establishing – logically, rationally – who is the “creature” and who is the “creator” when, say, a prisoner is about to be executed for murder?
Let me ask you this then: Would you be around to make this argument today had your mother aborted you? Sure, you can pick a point at any juncture between conception and death and say “here human, there not human”. But how does one go about establishing “ontologically” which it is – whether the arguments revolve around abortion or genocide or euthanasia.
How on earth is the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy rendered moot or ineffectual?
As for Harry Neumann, how is his analysis not just one more personal opinion rooted in but one more set of political prejudices?
As I noted above, we are seemingly far, far removed regarding the manner in which we construe the existential implications of these relationships.
This reminds me of what Alan Watts said when lamenting philosophy’s shift from the glorious wonder of existence to an almost laboratory-style profession of logic and analysis. Paraphrasing, he said: the philosopher had become a practical man who came to work with a briefcase at nine and left at five. He does philosophy during the day, discusses if a particular sentence has meaning then goes home to watch TV. Quoting William Earl, he added: the professional philosopher ‘would come to work with a white coat if he thought he could get away with it.’ 
.
Yes.
On the other hand, who is to say why any particular one of us chooses to wait for godot in any one particular way?
Fortunately, I know that you know I was never meant to actually come up with the right answer. Unfortunately, you now know just how surprised I am that you would be the one to ask it.
What, did you lose a bet with Satyr? 
Lest we reach an impasse, I will suppose that you’ve accepted my axiom, at least for argument’s sake. Valuation, then, is an objective value, in that all rational human beings must agree that they cannot disvalue valuation; they can only esteem it. Well then, supposing that a zygote (a fertilised human egg cell) is already capable of valuing, as pro-life people claim, isn’t it already invaluable and thereby inviolable, as they also claim? But then again, wouldn’t the same go for any single-celled organism–a bacterium, for instance? Of course it would, and this is entirely in order, for there are higher and lower valuings, and the higher are logically more valuable than the lower. In the case of a zygote and a bacterium, the value lies in what can grow out of it: in the latter case, nothing greater, whereas in the former case, a rational human being–a human being who can choose, who can consent, who can have an informed opinion, make informed decisions and judgments. So supposing that women are capable of that–as has been denied for most of the past, of course–, the choice is clear: forcing a woman to bear a child means suppressing her for the sake of precisely that which one suppresses in her!