# What is The Good?
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714
**Category:** Philosophy
**Created:** [June 23, 2017, 11:13pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714 "2017-06-23T23:13:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 9:51am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/41 "2017-06-29T09:51:31Z")
> [@Void\_X\_Zero](#):
>
> It isn’t possible to be free from causality. What would that even look like? It’s impossible to even imagine. For anything to exist or to happen it must have reasons for that, period. You can reference the principle of sufficient reason if you like, and unless you’ve come up with a refutation of it (go ahead and try) then you’re forced to acknowledge that nothing exists or happens without having reasons (causes) that necessitated it. This is what “cause” means.
>
> What would an uncaused event look like? It is literally the antithesis of reason and logic to even try and imagine such a thing, because it would have absolutely no reason or logic to it whatsoever. Go ahead and explain the structure of even one “uncaused event”. You can’t do it.
That’s a backward way of thinking.
Existence requires no causal relations.
In other words, the universe is not obliged to unfold according to some predetermined set of rules (i.e. someone’s expectations.)
Causal relations are interpretations.
Causality is a form of correlation.
It’s a form of conditional probability: probability that some event B (which we call “effect”) will appear given some event A (which we call “cause”.)
An uncaused event is simply an event for which we see no cause.
Why do we bother with causal relations?
Because we want to predict the future.
That’s all.
What you’re doing here is you are projecting your model of reality onto the universe itself.
Suppose you have a sequence of events such as {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}.
We can easily conclude that the next event in the sequence will be {7}.
Why is this so?
It’s because we can see a mechanism by which every event is derived from the prior event.
This mechanism being nothing but a sum of the number associated with the previous event and number 1.
It’s tempting to say that this mechanism lies in between these events and that it calculates (i.e. determines) these events according to its rules.
And that this mechanism is necessary to exist in order for these events to occur.
But that is not true.
This mechanism is merely an interpretation and so it only requires a brain capable of interpretation in order for it to come into existence.
There is nothing behind these events.
There is no mechanism operating according to some mathematical formula.
There is also no “duration” no “continuity” no “thing-in-itself” no “motion” as Bergson would suggest.
There are only events, there is only appearance.
---
### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/42 "2017-06-29T14:04:07Z")
> [@Urwrongx1000](#):
>
> Goodness implies moral accountability and agency.
>
> To “be Good” implies that you have the capability to cause acts of goodness in the world, and similarly, have the power to reap the rewards of those same acts that you were responsible for.
Still a bit tautological. It is good to be able to do good. But at least you include the notion of power.
---
### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 2:48pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/43 "2017-06-29T14:48:36Z")
> [@Sauwelios](#):
>
> > [@Fixed Cross](#):
> >
> > the Will to Power is in fact the morality of nature, not merely its behavior.
>
> I suppose this does contradict my position, in that it turns it around: where I said morality is a form of the will to power, you seem to be saying the will to power is a form of morality. But then what is morality?
At bottom, I take it as an understanding of behavior and consequence.
Certainly, morality is will to power.
My claim that WtP is morality is less hard than the fact that morality is will to power.
> [@](#):
>
> Are you saying here that the good is not that which is valuable? I certainly don’t think it’s simply that, as I think “value” is itself hollow, a mere notion, etc. What is the meaning of “Valuing”?–that’s the question I’ve been trying to answer lately.
“Value” and “good” are almost … cognate.
The good would be the self-valuing: the principle, and wherever it fully manifests.
> [@](#):
>
> Well, I disagree with you about Socrates. I don’t think he was any less great than Nietzsche (but neither greater, of course).
Equal, then?
I really cant support that. First of all I dont think there are any equalities, certainly no equal humans, let alone equal philosophers.
But specifically, I find Nietzche a brilliant hard diamond of style and consistency, and Socrates an insufferable and pompous poseur. I just started reading the Apology again, I truly look down on it. The style is weak.
> [@](#):
>
> Self-Valuing, as the Valuing of that very Valuing, is surely Narcissistic–
Absolutely not!
A narcissist values his own being valued, not his valuing. In fact a narcissist is blocked from selfvaluing, as he can not survive by his mere passive valuation.
A better example of selfvaluing is breathing: valuing the air in terms of that which allows us to continue valuing it, that is how a selfvaljuing sustains itself, how it self-values, how its valuing adds to itself. The tale of Narcissus shows how Narcissus fails at self-valuing because he is obsessed with his own entirely passive appearance - will is absent in him.
> [@](#):
>
> unless it be that, because it’s not about a self valuing itself, it is not. But if Narcissus is understood as a Valuing, and that Valuing is a Valuing of that very Valuing, I’d certainly call that Narcissistic. Anyway, at this point I’m really only interested in the question as to the meaning of Valuing. What does it mean to value something, to experience something as valuable? I think it means to experience something as pleasurable, which means to derive a feeling of power from it, which means a sensation of freedom. Self-valuing is then: deriving a sensation of freedom from deriving a sensation of freedom.
To self-value means to value so as to persist of course as a valuing.
Pleasure usually comes later in the signals of what is valuable. Fear and pain are often the first signals of value. A baby’s first breath hurts like hell. The human valuing is capable of turning pain into pleasure.
This is itself the valuing, the transmuting.
Merely seeking pleasure is almost never resulting in power. What leads to power is virtue - the good - the existent; having something to offer and seeing what existence is offering oneself. This is pleasurable as well as painful, it includes all sensations.
Pain is not necessarily a repellent, pleasure is not necessarily an attractor. They are merely conditions of change and they usually turn into each other. The are the same sort of thing - response - , both happen while we value.
Where I love, it can hurt, but that pain can be far more valuable than the pleasure a meaningless sexual experience.
> [@](#):
>
> I want to share with you a passage of Picht that I’ve translated:
>
> "Here we again run into the concept ‘will to truth’. On first sight, the opinion must suggest itself that, by ‘truth’, at least at this point only the so-called truth of metaphysics can be understood–after all, doesn’t Nietzsche say that the will to truth is a hiding-from-view of that false character [of the world], a reinterpretation thereof into what is? The will to truth is thus determined here as the will, active in metaphysical morality, to the reinterpretation of semblance [Schein] into what is, thus to the grounding of the fundamental error of metaphysics. The true is understood in this will as the permanent. Permanent however is only the imaginary counterworld to the absolute flux, permanent is therefore only semblance. No doubt: the truth, thus understood, is semblance and, when the semblance is passed off as truth, error. But how does it stand with the will to truth? Nietzsche does not say, as would have to be said from the standpoint of metaphysics: The will to truth is the will to cognisance of the steadfast, the true, the permanent; he rather says: ‘The will to truth is a making steadfast, a making true/permanent’, a reinterpretation of semblance into Being.
I strongly agree with the latter part here.
I refer to my essay about self-valuing as Consistency.
The first chapter in the OP
[beforethelight.forumotion.com/t1 … e-ontology](http://beforethelight.forumotion.com/t130-summary-of-value-ontology)
> [@](#):
>
> When one oneself first makes what shall be cognised as true, when one gains Being only thereby that one reinterprets semblance into being, then the will which accomplishes that cannot avoid eventually discovering that what it must first make steadfast is not yet steadfast by itself, and that the permanence which it must first create is not already given in advance.
And this is the ultimate triumph. Given, naturally, that the will is capable of, - and willing to create this.
> [@](#):
>
> As Nietzsche puts the concept ‘will to truth’ in place of cognisance of the truth, he has thus carried out the great inversion. He wants to cognise the problem of science no longer on the soil of science, but sees the process of designing the schema of a permanent world from the perspective of the artist.
No, this is wrong. He sees it both as scientist and artist, but neither term is sufficient - he sees it as a philosopher, who knows the fallacy of even the term “truth” - he knows that knowing is judging. He knows that all knowledge is partial, and thus also an ignorance. This knowing is certainly no less scientific than it is poetic, but neither terms captures it. The classic thread The Ontological Tyranny addresses this failure.
> [@](#):
>
> From this perpective, too, the truth is still only so-called truth; it is the semblance in which the counterworld appears. But only when considered from the standpoint of the will to truth does it come to light what is really true about the so-called truth, namely the necessity to found an abiding order, in which life is possible. Once again it turns out that Nietzsche’ s inversion of metaphysics has a double meaning. On the one hand, the fundamental error of metaphysics is as it were unmasked; it is now no longer possible to pass off as Being what in truth is semblance. On the other hand, however, it is through the exposure of the will which is active in its ground that the proceedings of metaphysics in their inner necessity first become understandable and in this sense get justified. Only through the overcoming of the error of metaphysics does what had been true in all metaphysics come to the surface. If one understands ‘truth’ in the concept ‘will to truth’ as the truth in truthful semblance, then the will to truth is no more only a will to so-called truth; it is then rather the will to poiesis or, as Nietzsche says here, to ‘making’, that is to say to the production of a semblance which does not negate life but affirms it; which is thereby in unison with life and thanks its truth to this unison." (Picht, Nietzsche, pp. 281-82.)
Yes, I agree. It seems that what I disagree with is the term “artist” - but poet as directly deriving from poesis is appropriate - given that it does not exclude or contradict science.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > What are such Gods at all besides the absolutely human ability to cognate joy? And what, thus, is the loss of such Gods?
>
> I can’t even try to answer this as long as I don’t know what you mean by “to cognate”–“to cognise”?
It was a rhetorical question anyway.
I meant to say that when Athens lost the will to believe in Zeus, it had lost its will to itself.
---
### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/44 "2017-06-29T15:05:10Z")
By the way, ‘what is pleasurable? An increased feeling of power’ does not equate to ‘what is power? An increased feeling of pleasure’.
Pleasure to me is a base and quite hollow term, and as a phenomenon secondary or tertiary -
only that very particular joy (feeling good) of overcome resistance leading to greater depth and height relates to power - but the pleasure of say a child eating candy or, say, of a fetishist being whipped, does not.
Pleasure is a secondary phenomenon, an indicator and guideline, but it never indicates with certainty whether the source of pleasure is good or bad.
A slave enjoys what is bad for him, what affirms his lack of power, what doesn’t force him to look beyond, to possible overcoming. His pleasure is reductive, takes away from itself. He is an addict - ver-slaafd. It takes a strong being to value the pain of overcoming. The resulting self-enjoyment can be seen as pleasure, but it is of a fundamentally different type, and it doesnt fit to cal it by the same name. Hence, joy. But apparently you have a somewhat reversed interpretation of the terms.
---
### Author:  [@surreptitious57](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/surreptitious57)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 3:38pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/45 "2017-06-29T15:38:19Z")
Human beings are not good or bad but instead are moral agents capable of both
And also morality can not be truly objective only subjective or inter subjective
---
### Author:  [@URUZ](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/URUZ)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/46 "2017-06-29T16:06:05Z")
“Philosophers love feelings. Truth is just another empty word”. --Sauwelios
Yeah. We’re done here.
Keep farting on.
---
### Author:  [@Sauwelios](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Sauwelios)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 10:49pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/47 "2017-06-29T22:49:53Z")
> [@Void\_X\_Zero](#):
>
> “Philosophers love feelings. Truth is just another empty word”. --Sauwelios
What I mean here is that truth is a placeholder, a variable, as long as we don’t know it. It does not have to turn out to be pleasurable for us to seek it, but the seeking itself must be. The Nietzschean view is of course that it’s the pleasure of cruelty, the cruelty against oneself in forcing oneself toward the truth.
---
### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 11:09pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/48 "2017-06-29T23:09:37Z")
To me the word Truth always pertains to a statement. Ive always been clear about this when asked.
“My name is Jakob” is a statement of a truth, but only when I say it.
Truth as such, as close as I have come to gathering what that might mean is Crowleys essays.
Value ontology is a true logic.
Is it Truth itself?
Well if there is a truth to itself, it is self-valuing.
see, self-valuing is deeper than truth.
The truth about my life… that is interesting.
But truthfulness, the will to not deceive oneself, this is merely a form of strength. It is not a pretense to an objective quality - it is simply a strong self-valuing, a great health.
And yes, Nietzsche, as ive seen it, ‘suffered the great health’ - of course. How else could he permit himself such sicknesses… and more, such terrible recoveries?
Normal health is a nausea to the great health. A contraction of the stomach and the diaphragm, a discipline of conservation. The great health squanders itself, and manifests again as it gathers itself again - recreates itself out of seemingly less than nothing.
---
### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 11:15pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/49 "2017-06-29T23:15:09Z")
> [@surreptitious57](#):
>
> Human beings are not good or bad but instead are moral agents capable of both
> And also morality can not be truly objective only subjective or inter subjective
These arent insights or arguments but statements of opinion. No offense; Im sure you can manage a bit more.
---
### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 11:22pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/50 "2017-06-29T23:22:04Z")
> [@Sauwelios](#):
>
> The Nietzschean view is of course that it’s the pleasure of cruelty, the cruelty against oneself in forcing oneself toward the truth.
Yes - but how can it be truly cruel if it is a pleasure that results?
One can be cruel to another by pushing him to truthfulness, there is no pleasure to sustain the suffering
but if one pushes oneself to truthfulness, the pain and the pleasure are really the same, and there is no cruelty involved more than there is mercy; there is only will, the will to experience and thus embody more of the world.
It is only a question of how much one can shape into Apollonian knowing, how great ones temple-mount becomes; in the same measure one is privileged to host Dionysos in ones heart.
---
### Author:  [@surreptitious57](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/surreptitious57)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2017, 1:27am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/51 "2017-06-30T01:27:52Z")
> [@Fixed Cross](#):
>
> > [@surreptitious57](#):
> >
> > Human beings are not good or bad but instead are moral agents capable of both
> > And also morality can not be truly objective only subjective or inter subjective
>
> These arent insights or arguments but statements of opinion
The first might be but the second is not. Morality can not be objective because it is dependent upon ones belief system [if one has one] and subjective
interpretation. Individual moral opinions can also change during a life time. And what was morally acceptable or unacceptable at one time might not be
at another. Were it objective and absolute none of this would be true
---
### Author:  [@Sauwelios](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Sauwelios)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2017, 1:35am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/52 "2017-06-30T01:35:59Z")
> [@Fixed Cross](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Well, I disagree with you about Socrates. I don’t think he was any less great than Nietzsche (but neither greater, of course).
>
> Equal, then?
> I really cant support that. First of all I dont think there are any equalities, certainly no equal humans, let alone equal philosophers.
> But specifically, I find Nietzche a brilliant hard diamond of style and consistency, and Socrates an insufferable and pompous poseur. I just started reading the Apology again, I truly look down on it. The style is weak.
I think the only equal humans are equal philosophers, because they are the only fully human beings and are “infinite”. But of course, Nietzsche is much closer to, much deeper within my heart than Socrates. But that is due especially to the time in which he appeared and thereby the time for which he wrote. Note that I didn’t like the Socratics at all before I knew esoteric readings of them!
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Self-Valuing, as the Valuing of that very Valuing, is surely Narcissistic–
>
> Absolutely not!
> A narcissist values his own being valued, not his valuing. In fact a narcissist is blocked from selfvaluing, as he can not survive by his mere passive valuation.
But in the case of Narcissus, wasn’t he pining away in adoring his own reflection, as opposed to succumbing to his indulgence in knowing himself to be adored?
> [@](#):
>
> A better example of selfvaluing is breathing: valuing the air in terms of that which allows us to continue valuing it, that is how a selfvaljuing sustains itself, how it self-values, how its valuing adds to itself.
But if we value the air solely for allowing us to continue to value it, then “Valuing” doesn’t mean anything, it’s just an empty word. Of course, we don’t value it solely for that, but this means the example does not solve the issue I raise. There must be a non-circular value if “Valuing” is not to be empty.
> [@](#):
>
> The tale of Narcissus shows how Narcissus fails at self-valuing because he is obsessed with his own entirely passive appearance - will is absent in him.
This makes sense. He does not look at his reflection in adoration at “that magnificent willer, that glorious valuing one”, but just as an object, a beautiful form; not a force. This is of course the whole problem with Platonic metaphysics: “immaculate perception”. Then again, he probably did want to do more than just look at that beautiful youth in the mirror, but couldn’t, since it was only an image. But even if he wanted that youth to do stuff to him, I guess he would be passive–though I don’t know how that whole homosexual dynamic works. In any case, the “cosmic Narcissism” I’ve championed is that in which the philosopher rejoices in his Dionysian beauty and uses his whole world–i.e., those parts of his world that are not his Self in the sense of his ensouled or enminded body–as a mirror to reflect his self-enjoyment in. This is not passive, as it involves an imposition, including in the sense of “deception”.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > unless it be that, because it’s not about a self valuing itself, it is not. But if Narcissus is understood as a Valuing, and that Valuing is a Valuing of that very Valuing, I’d certainly call that Narcissistic. Anyway, at this point I’m really only interested in the question as to the meaning of Valuing. What does it mean to value something, to experience something as valuable? I think it means to experience something as pleasurable, which means to derive a feeling of power from it, which means a sensation of freedom. Self-valuing is then: deriving a sensation of freedom from deriving a sensation of freedom.
>
> To self-value means to value so as to persist of course as a valuing.
That doesn’t answer the question as to what Valuing is.
> [@](#):
>
> Pleasure usually comes later in the signals of what is valuable. Fear and pain are often the first signals of value. A baby’s first breath hurts like hell. The human valuing is capable of turning pain into pleasure.
A newborn baby already knows pleasure, from its time in the womb. So then the value is in the pleasure it’s able to turn the pain into.
> [@](#):
>
> This is itself the valuing, the transmuting.
But surely a thing is not valuable inasmuch as it’s transmutable, but inasmuch as it’s transmutable into pleasure or inasmuch as the transmuting is pleasurable.
> [@](#):
>
> Merely seeking pleasure is almost never resulting in power.
Then again, what’s the value of power if not the pleasure it gives?
> [@](#):
>
> What leads to power is virtue - the good - the existent; having something to offer and seeing what existence is offering oneself. This is pleasurable as well as painful, it includes all sensations.
>
> Pain is not necessarily a repellent, pleasure is not necessarily an attractor. They are merely conditions of change and they usually turn into each other. The are the same sort of thing - response - , both happen while we value.
>
> Where I love, it can hurt, but that pain can be far more valuable than the pleasure a meaningless sexual experience.
Sure, but why. You say “can be”, but when is it? Only when it leads to pleasure of some kind in some way, I say.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > As Nietzsche puts the concept ‘will to truth’ in place of cognisance of the truth, he has thus carried out the great inversion. He wants to cognise the problem of science no longer on the soil of science, but sees the process of designing the schema of a permanent world from the perspective of the artist.
>
> No, this is wrong. He sees it both as scientist and artist, but neither term is sufficient - he sees it as a philosopher, who knows the fallacy of even the term “truth” - he knows that knowing is judging. He knows that all knowledge is partial, and thus also an ignorance. This knowing is certainly no less scientific than it is poetic, but neither terms captures it. The classic thread The Ontological Tyranny addresses this failure.
But doesn’t this already presuppose that science itself involves poiesis? That is precisely what Nietzsche first drew attention to.
> [@Fixed Cross](#):
>
> By the way, ‘what is pleasurable? An increased feeling of power’ does not equate to ‘what is power? An increased feeling of pleasure’.
>
> Pleasure to me is a base and quite hollow term, and as a phenomenon secondary or tertiary -
> only that very particular joy (feeling good) of overcome resistance leading to greater depth and height relates to power - but the pleasure of say a child eating candy or, say, of a fetishist being whipped, does not.
>
> Pleasure is a secondary phenomenon, an indicator and guideline, but it never indicates with certainty whether the source of pleasure is good or bad.
>
> A slave enjoys what is bad for him, what affirms his lack of power, what doesn’t force him to look beyond, to possible overcoming. His pleasure is reductive, takes away from itself. He is an addict - ver-slaafd. It takes a strong being to value the pain of overcoming. The resulting self-enjoyment can be seen as pleasure, but it is of a fundamentally different type, and it doesnt fit to cal it by the same name. Hence, joy. But apparently you have a somewhat reversed interpretation of the terms.
The word Lust in Nietzsche is indeed usually translated as “joy”, but I think “pleasure” is better inasmuch as it’s more visceral. I arrived at this translation after realising that “pleasure”, like Lust, has a negative form (“displeasure”, Unlust). If we’re considering going with “joy” instead, I’d rather use the word “enjoyment”: Genuss, not Freude. I think I’ll look into the etymologies for the various synonyms or near-synonyms one of these days.
How do we determine with certainty whether the source of pleasure is good or bad? I’m reminded of my “definition” of Nietzsche’s concept of the grand style: grand is any style that really communicates the soul of a great man. But what is a great man? A great man is a man who reminds great men of the ascent of their type (i.e., whom they find beautiful: see Twilight, “Skirmishes” 19-20). So only great men can determine whether a man is great…
In any case, I don’t think it matters whether the source of pleasure is good or bad. Let the slave enjoy what is bad for him! I even suspect we can say his self-reduction is his form of power. Then the identification of power and the feeling of power is justified after all.
---
### Author:  [@Sauwelios](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Sauwelios)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2017, 2:27am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/53 "2017-06-30T02:27:45Z")
> [@Fixed Cross](#):
>
> > [@Sauwelios](#):
> >
> > The Nietzschean view is of course that it’s the pleasure of cruelty, the cruelty against oneself in forcing oneself toward the truth.
>
> Yes - but how can it be truly cruel if it is a pleasure that results?
> One can be cruel to another by pushing him to truthfulness, there is no pleasure to sustain the suffering
> but if one pushes oneself to truthfulness, the pain and the pleasure are really the same, and there is no cruelty involved more than there is mercy; there is only will, the will to experience and thus embody more of the world.
Well, that supposes the self is a single subject. Nietzsche however argued for understanding the soul as a subject-multiplicity. Good point, though.
As for Void, I hope our clash won’t keep him from posting in this thread. I think we should only debate with you, not with each other.
---
### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2017, 9:01am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/54 "2017-06-30T09:01:13Z")
> [@Fixed Cross](#):
>
> A slave enjoys what is bad for him, what affirms his lack of power, what doesn’t force him to look beyond, to possible overcoming.
How can you say this if you think that good/bad is relative?
Is it not the case that you are judging the actions of a slave against your own standards?
The slave is doing whatever he’s doing – say consuming drugs – because that’s what he thinks is good for him.
He does not see what he’s doing as being bad.
You do.
I agree that it is possible that his standards have degenerated and that at some point in the future his standards will regenerate at which point he will reinterpret what he’s been doing in the meantime (e.g. taking drugs) as something bad.
But this is a view from a point of view different from the one which he possessed at the time of his now-so-called bad actions.
Let me quote your earlier statement:
> [@](#):
>
> Who can tell another what he truly needs without being terribly invasive and presumptuous?
> Further, what is a real need - what truly is necessary? Is life necessary?
Is it not terribly invasive and presumptuous of you to say that what slave is doing is bad for him?
---
### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2017, 1:02pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/55 "2017-06-30T13:02:04Z")
> [@surreptitious57](#):
>
> > [@Fixed Cross](#):
> >
> > > [@surreptitious57](#):
> > >
> > > Human beings are not good or bad but instead are moral agents capable of both
> > > And also morality can not be truly objective only subjective or inter subjective
> >
> > These arent insights or arguments but statements of opinion
>
> The first might be but the second is not. Morality can not be objective because it is dependent upon ones belief system [if one has one] and subjective
> interpretation. Individual moral opinions can also change during a life time. And what was morally acceptable or unacceptable at one time might not be
> at another. Were it objective and absolute none of this would be true
Objective and absolute are different things.
Absolute means timeless, eternal, unchangeable. Objective means simply that it applies regardless of opinion, but doesn’t have to be permanent.
I personally think the distinction subjective/objective is rubbish. All things are both.
Logically, there is no way to define something as objective without doing so subjectively, and there is no way to define something as subjective without making claims to objectivity. We need to stop falling for this silliness and move beyond it.
Morality is both subjective and objective. Meaning, roughly: it comes from humans and it pertains to humans.
The exact meaning doesn’t exist, as ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ are very far from being exact terms.
---
### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2017, 1:08pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/56 "2017-06-30T13:08:59Z")
You can say there are objective and subjective methods of judgment and by extension conclusions.
An objective conclusion is one derived from prior observations + conclusions that are ultimately derived from prior observations.
A subjective conclusion is one derived from one’s personal preference.
---
### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2017, 2:12pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/57 "2017-06-30T14:12:22Z")
> [@Sauwelios](#):
>
> I think the only equal humans are equal philosophers, because they are the only fully human beings and are “infinite”. But of course, Nietzsche is much closer to, much deeper within my heart than Socrates. But that is due especially to the time in which he appeared and thereby the time for which he wrote. Note that I didn’t like the Socratics at all before I knew esoteric readings of them!
I dont agree that Socrates is more fully a human being than Alexander, most absolutely not. Where we differ, you and I, is that I do not see “philosopher” as a category. I see Thpales as infinitely higher and more of a being than Socrates. Thales and Nietzsche are more alike to Alexander than Socrates is to Nietzsche -
to my eyes. To my eyes Sokrates offers no Heraclitean fire. He is the water that leaves wet ashes and dank air.
Very many humans in history have been fuller beings than Socrates, I reckon - but we wont agree on this, and I kind of like that. No, I very much like that there is an abyss, a depth, between our perspectives. It is fertile.
My motivation is rather absolute, it pertains on all levels and never changed one iota - I hate Socrates style, I find him to be wrong about the fundamentals of both ethics and logic, not to mention, taste - and I have never read a single idea from him that I found edifying, let alone illuminating.
Whereas I love Nietzsche’s style, find him to be right on the fundamentals of ethics, logic, taste, and have rarely read a passage or aphorism that I did not find edifying or even illuminating.
Socrates, for me, is just another sensualist trying to draw attention away from the gods and to himself.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > A narcissist values his own being valued, not his valuing. In fact a narcissist is blocked from selfvaluing, as he can not survive by his mere passive valuation.
>
> But in the case of Narcissus, wasn’t he pining away in adoring his own reflection, as opposed to succumbing to his indulgence in knowing himself to be adored?
I think these are the same, or of the same psyche; a woman in front of a mirror. Just as I think there is no absolute difference between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > A better example of selfvaluing is breathing: valuing the air in terms of that which allows us to continue valuing it, that is how a selfvaljuing sustains itself, how it self-values, how its valuing adds to itself.
>
> But if we value the air solely for allowing us to continue to value it, then “Valuing” doesn’t mean anything, it’s just an empty word. Of course, we don’t value it solely for that, but this means the example does not solve the issue I raise. There must be a non-circular value if “Valuing” is not to be empty.
This looks to me like you are looking for an absolute value. A term that is always cognate with value, but is not itself value.
That is an illogical endeavor.
The absolute value of value is that it is the thing that allows for existence, thus, for itself.
As you indicated through Picht, it is the will toward value that builds existence. Valuing is thus existence itself, and value the ground to it, even though it can only be apprehended as transient.
It is not empty, “value” itself is the thing, precisely because it determines which thing at which time is to exist.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > The tale of Narcissus shows how Narcissus fails at self-valuing because he is obsessed with his own entirely passive appearance - will is absent in him.
>
> This makes sense. He does not look at his reflection in adoration at “that magnificent willer, that glorious valuing one”, but just as an object, a beautiful form; not a force. This is of course the whole problem with Platonic metaphysics: “immaculate perception”.
Exactly. Why Plato is an absolute “fag”.
> [@](#):
>
> Then again, he probably did want to do more than just look at that beautiful youth in the mirror, but couldn’t, since it was only an image.
Thats speculation. From knowing some people with severe narcissistic afflictions, I dont think that fits to the narcissistic mindset. A fear of touch, of being in the world, is typical.
> [@](#):
>
> But even if he wanted that youth to do stuff to him, I guess he would be passive–though I don’t know how that whole homosexual dynamic works. In any case, the “cosmic Narcissism” I’ve championed is that in which the philosopher rejoices in his Dionysian beauty and uses his whole world–i.e., those parts of his world that are not his Self in the sense of his ensouled or enminded body–as a mirror to reflect his self-enjoyment in. This is not passive, as it involves an imposition, including in the sense of “deception”.
Still Id be wary of using the term. I certainly can not identify as a narcissist, not even cosmically -
The fact that there are others, that there is otherness, holds an in finite appeal to me, is cause of in finite vigor.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > To self-value means to value so as to persist of course as a valuing.
>
> That doesn’t answer the question as to what Valuing is.
Valuing is being a will. A valuing is a vector. A self-valuing is a system of vectors that points to its own progressed state.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Pleasure usually comes later in the signals of what is valuable. Fear and pain are often the first signals of value. A baby’s first breath hurts like hell. The human valuing is capable of turning pain into pleasure.
>
> A newborn baby already knows pleasure, from its time in the womb. So then the value is in the pleasure it’s able to turn the pain into.
Yes. But all this shows is that pain and pleasure are inseparable.
The act of valuing involves both.
This is a running theme in VO: binary dichotomies perish under a uniting logos/will/eye/word.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > This is itself the valuing, the transmuting.
>
> But surely a thing is not valuable inasmuch as it’s transmutable, but inasmuch as it’s transmutable into pleasure or inasmuch as the transmuting is pleasurable.
The transmutation is the pleasure, and also the pain.
Pain turns into pleasure when it turns out it attained a value.
As you see I have turned it around.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Merely seeking pleasure is almost never resulting in power.
>
> Then again, what’s the value of power if not the pleasure it gives?
Whats the value of pleasure if not of power it represents?
This is what I loathe in Socrates. He is a pure hedonist, doesnt care about the source of his pleasure, even reduces the good to whatever arbitrarily gives pleasure.
But what is pleasurable to Socrates causes nausea in me.
It appears to me, that all esoteric reading of Socrates is really a reading of something entirely beyond Socrates. I think Lampert and others have read a lot into Socrates that they actually got from Nietzsche. I dont think there is any proof that there was much behind Socrates’ words. His words are too ordinary, placid, to hide much behind them. I think that is all you, and Lampert, and the others doing that work.
Thats meant rather as a compliment than an insult, by the way - though you might not take it so.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Where I love, it can hurt, but that pain can be far more valuable than the pleasure a meaningless sexual experience.
>
> Sure, but why. You say “can be”, but when is it? Only when it leads to pleasure of some kind in some way, I say.
And where does it lead to pleasure? Where it is pain.
Only pain can lead to pleasure.
Thus, pain is the ground value of pleasure.
We would be wise to make a point of discerning different types (heights) of pleasure -
it is tasteless to equate all pleasures, very displeasurable in fact, and not painful! Rather, the absence of resistance. It is to easy. It doesnt amount in anything - pleasure that is actually a form of painless discomfort.
Goo - what i call the anti Trump camp, subhumanity - that is neither pain nor thus valuable pleasure, value-less life, un-being, hedonism, walking death. I literally think of the politically correct and the facile racists as unbeing, as not existent, as incapable of suffering, thus incapable of valuing - only capable of avoiding these things.
To them, that is pleasure - but what does that mean?
For a heavily suffering old men, it is pleasurable to die, but does that make it valuable to die?
No, it would be valuable to still do something great, and that would amount in a different type of pleasure - in joy, pure radiance.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > He knows that all knowledge is partial, and thus also an ignorance. This knowing is certainly no less scientific than it is poetic, but neither terms captures it. The classic thread The Ontological Tyranny addresses this failure.
>
> But doesn’t this already presuppose that science itself involves poiesis? That is precisely what Nietzsche first drew attention to.
Yes. But that does not mean that poesis can replace science.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@Fixed Cross](#):
> >
> > A slave enjoys what is bad for him, what affirms his lack of power, what doesn’t force him to look beyond, to possible overcoming. His pleasure is reductive, takes away from itself. He is an addict - ver-slaafd. It takes a strong being to value the pain of overcoming. The resulting self-enjoyment can be seen as pleasure, but it is of a fundamentally different type, and it doesnt fit to cal it by the same name. Hence, joy. But apparently you have a somewhat reversed interpretation of the terms.
>
> The word Lust in Nietzsche is indeed usually translated as “joy”, but I think “pleasure” is better inasmuch as it’s more visceral. I arrived at this translation after realising that “pleasure”, like Lust, has a negative form (“displeasure”, Unlust). If we’re considering going with “joy” instead, I’d rather use the word “enjoyment”: Genuss, not Freude. I think I’ll look into the etymologies for the various synonyms or near-synonyms one of these days.
I simply disagree there. Joy to me designates a more complete state. The Sun is my ultimate symbol of joy. And by the Sun I mean the entire Solar System, including all of its inhabitants.
My joyful science knows that we exist insde of the sun, inside of this massive joy, that we can en-joy as our own forms of joy.
Force and joy are similar concepts to me. Pleasure and passivity as well.
> [@](#):
>
> How do we determine with certainty whether the source of pleasure is good or bad?
Of course there is only one clear and resounding answer here: taste.
> [@](#):
>
> I’m reminded of my “definition” of Nietzsche’s concept of the grand style: grand is any style that really communicates the soul of a great man. But what is a great man? A great man is a man who reminds great men of the ascent of their type (i.e., whom they find beautiful: see Twilight, “Skirmishes” 19-20). So only great men can determine whether a man is great…
Certainly.
Just like a chessmaster cant be judged accurately by a less masterful player, and how wretched beings invariably scorn those that arent wretched.
My judgment of Socrates is certainly experienced as a gigantic privilege. I am very proud and joyful to be able to decide that Socrates is worthless, even in the face of some Socrates-admiring philosophical minds that I deeply respect.
Alexander is my companion from that time - the Ram, the first over the wall. He is telling, he is destiny.
> [@](#):
>
> In any case, I don’t think it matters whether the source of pleasure is good or bad. Let the slave enjoy what is bad for him! I even suspect we can say his self-reduction is his form of power. Then the identification of power and the feeling of power is justified after all.
Of course it matters who is slave and who is not - this is what matters foremost!
First, we weed out the slaves, and the slavish tendencies. Then we proceed to meet great resistances.
---
### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2017, 2:32pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/58 "2017-06-30T14:32:24Z")
> [@Sauwelios](#):
>
> > [@Fixed Cross](#):
> >
> > > [@Sauwelios](#):
> > >
> > > The Nietzschean view is of course that it’s the pleasure of cruelty, the cruelty against oneself in forcing oneself toward the truth.
> >
> > Yes - but how can it be truly cruel if it is a pleasure that results?
> > One can be cruel to another by pushing him to truthfulness, there is no pleasure to sustain the suffering
> > but if one pushes oneself to truthfulness, the pain and the pleasure are really the same, and there is no cruelty involved more than there is mercy; there is only will, the will to experience and thus embody more of the world.
>
> Well, that supposes the self is a single subject. Nietzsche however argued for understanding the soul as a subject-multiplicity. Good point, though.
Good point in turn: it doesn’t refute mine, though.
Even if the top drive is the one that is cruel to lower ones, the lower ones must partake in the joy of overcoming, must partake in the joy of the command, namely, by obeying it and carrying it out successfully.
But the aspect of philosophy that views the entity as a polis, a forged hierarchy of drives (in turn their own entities) is invaluable, crucial to VO. Self-valuing is a politics. Thus: logic itself is political.
> [@](#):
>
> As for Void, I hope our clash won’t keep him from posting in this thread. I think we should only debate with you, not with each other.
Yes, That went sideways fast.
Rather than that you are too great of a resistance for each other, I see that you both fail to be resistance at all to the others ideas. That is because you find each other too weak to engage with pleasure, I see that you each entirely avoid the others challenges, dont even recognize them as challenges, see them merely as blatant ugliness, inadequacy, error.
I cant blame you each for valuing me more than you value each other, of course. You are perfectly right. Emoticon.
Addendum
in very succinct terms, slave morality is that which takes pleasure more in beholding what which is lower, weaker, less fortunate, botched - it soothes its own dislike of itself, allows even more slackness to creep into the system. Decay as value, being as an unconscious automaton. Master morality is that which takes pleasure more in beholding what is higher, stronger, more fortunate, elegant - it challenges it to become more of itself. Growth as value, being as a conscious joy.
Thus logically, slave morality tends to underestimate, master morality to overestimate.
---
### Author:  [@barbarianhorde](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/barbarianhorde)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2017, 12:01am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/59 "2017-07-01T00:01:03Z")
But why not wisdom?
The good is wisdom. Wisdom is the good.
Wisdom is what works to make the world a better place. Or the power to do that. Wisdom is the ultimate power.
Isnt selfvaluing the love of wisdom of a wise man 😲🕶 =D\>
---
### Author:  [@URUZ](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/URUZ)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2017, 2:12am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-the-good/44714/60 "2017-07-01T02:12:51Z")
Non-philosophy.
Images are not ideas.
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