First of all, I have put this thread in the philosophy forum. And that’s because in regard to personal identity, value judgments and political economy – my main interests here – my own conclusions are of a philosophical nature. And then taking those conclusions out into the world that I live in from day to day.
If philosophy revolves around the search for wisdom, what might be construed by each of us as wise in regard to that which is of most interest to me: How ought one to live in a world ever and always bursting at the seams with both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change?
Now my question to you…
Given a particular set of circumstances in which your own value judgments might be challenged by others, how do you react to my points here:
Or, is I encompassed it with Gib:
For the fractured and fragmented “I”, the embodiment of dasein, that basically comes down to this:
I was born at a particular time historically, in a particular place culturally. I was indoctrinated for years to think about the world around me this way instead of that way. Then I accumulated a particular set of experiences and relationships that predisposed me further to think this is moral instead of that.
So…
What then in coming to a philosophy venue can all of these different people with all of these different lives and experiences and value judgments come to conclude using the tools of philosophy regarding one’s moral obligations in a world bursting at the seams with both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change?
With regard to things like abortion, animal rights, gun ownership, the role of government, race, gender, sexual orientation and straight on down the line to the hundreds of other things we clash over.
Thank you for accepting my invitation, Iambiguous, and I’d like to take this opportunity to invite anyone else to join in if they want to. I think the fairest, and easiest, thing to say is that any responses made to others, by either of us, will not count towards the total of six posts.
+++But then nature itself allows for them to anchor their moral and political values/commitments to, well, anything, right?+++
Nature neither allows nor disallows anything of the sort. The only things that nature allows or disallows are those connected with physical laws, and even those are apparently flexible, presumably because we don’t actually understand them.
+++It is almost as though in regard to value judgments, nature, like me, is a moral nihilist. It all comes down to whatever you, personally, adventitiously, come to believe about all the conflicting goods that rend the species.+++
Nature is not a nihilist because nihilism is a belief, or opinion, invented by humans. Nature has no beliefs or opinions. I’ll go further and say that I think nihilism is a religion, just as dogmatic and uncompromising as any other.
+++You say that it is wrong to assume that “Pagans have no moral values derived from their Pagan worldview”, but if they are all on their own personal paths…paths that can bring them to very different – at times conflicting – moral values precipitating behaviors that clash, then how is nature itself not, in regard to “having moral values”, but another manifestation of “situational ethics”?+++
Speaking from my own experience, the underlying spiritual value that having a connection with nature brings to my life very much informs my opinions and actions with regard to morality and ethics, as with so much else. While I can’t speak on behalf of other Pagans, I’m sure that many would say the same.
+++To me, nature is as much this…
…earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis, the brutal and savage slaughterhouse that revolves around predators and prey, pandemics, plagues, asteroid and comet strikes, countless medical afflictions. And then from time to time actual extinction events in which virtually all life around the globe is wiped out of existence.
…as in all the “spiritual” things that you get from it. How, in fact, given what nature does throw at us is it not completely amoral in regard to us human beings? Where here – how here – do you make a distinction between nature and the Goddess?+++
Nature is the goddess, of which we are all a part. I don’t make a distinction between the two, and I don’t believe that I’ve ever suggested that nature cannot be cruel as well as kind (human words, obviously, with human values attached). Challenge is what has made humans, and all species, evolve in the first place, without which we wouldn’t be here. For us, as humans, it’s what we do with such challenges that’s important.
+++… given my own understanding of what Maia is saying, she is on her own personal path re nature and the Goddess. That path has culminated in her own personal views on vaccinations, brexit, nihilism, monotheism and all the moral and political conflagrations that beset the species. But other Pagans, on their own personal paths, may come to completely different and conflicting points of view. So, how are she, nature and the Gods/Goddesses not proponents of “situational ethics” here? It’s like a smorgasbord morality. You pick your path, others pick their path and that need be as far as it goes.
That’s what I’m curious about with Maia here. Satyr is clearly embedded in the “listening to me = agreeing with with me” dogmatist/authoritarian ranks. But what of Maia, nature and the Goddess? If Pagans are all on their own personal paths intertwined in an amoral nature, and are able to come to conflicting conclusions regarding the moral and political conflagrations that have rent the human species now for thousands of years, what for all practical purposes does it mean for a Pagan in say “I am a moral person”?+++
Morality is something innate in humans, that nature has given us, through evolution. As for Pagans coming to different conclusions about various issues, that is hardly ever a problem, in my experience.
+++For the fractured and fragmented “I”, the embodiment of dasein, that basically comes down to this:
I was born at a particular time historically, in a particular place culturally. I was indoctrinated for years to think about the world around me this way instead of that way. Then I accumulated a particular set of experiences and relationships that predisposed me further to think this is moral instead of that.
So…
What then in coming to a philosophy venue can all of these different people with all of these different lives and experiences and value judgments come to conclude using the tools of philosophy regarding one’s moral obligations in a world bursting at the seams with both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change?
With regard to things like abortion, animal rights, gun ownership, the role of government, race, gender, sexual orientation and straight on down the line to the hundreds of other things we clash over.+++
Whatever you like, apparently. So if the tools of philosophy are such an unsure and unstable guide, perhaps that tells you something about their worth.
That part is still completely surreal to me, but, okay, sure.
Let’s bring this down to Earth. John is a Pagan and, given his own personal experiences on the path with nature and his own God/Goddess, he comes to believe that abortion is immoral and that he should do everything in his power to bring an end to it. Jane is a Pagan and, given her own personal experiences on the path with nature and her own God/Goddess, she comes to believe that abortion is moral and that she should do everything in her power to protect a woman’s right to choose abortion.
Now, nature itself is such that nearly 1,000,000 babies a year will be aborted “naturally” through miscarriages. And that’s just in the United States.
So, given the personal path that you are on re nature and the Goddess, how do you come to the conclusions that you do regarding the morality of abortion? Or any other value judgments in which Pagans can disagree just as fiercely as those who are not Pagans. And how in any given Pagan community are this differences of opinion dealt with?
This is the part I find most difficult to grasp. With those I construe to be objectivists – re a God/the God, ideology, deontology, Satyr’s “biological imperatives”/genes > memes etc. – they divide the world up between “one of us” [the rational and the moral] and “one of them” [the irrational and immoral]. And everyone on their own One True Path is expected to toe the line. With them, either John must come around to Jane’s point of view or Jane to John’s…whichever is endorsed by those who call the shots in these objectivist communities.
But with you and nature and the Goddess…that sort of back and forth communication is largely a blur to me. Then the part where you seem to acknowledge that had your life been very different you might not have become a Pagan at all. Yet it did unfold as it did and you are. Almost as though it could never have not unfolded as it did. Either as a result of a destiny derived congenitally or given a life lived only as it must be lived.
And that’s largely a “mystical” frame of mind to me. Or in the vicinity of determinism. A visceral, intuitive leap of faith in order to ground “I” to the One True Personal Path.
So, what are you saying, that there is no teleological function embedded in nature? In the Goddess? That going back to the Big Bang the laws of nature somehow just evolved here on planet Earth into what we experience as a part of nature ourselves with no essential meaning and purpose “behind” it? And, by extension, there is no essential meaning and purpose “behind” your own life… other than what, existentially, given the manner in which I construe identity as the embodiment of dasein, your Goddess becomes in turn just an experiential construct that you thought up given your own personal experiences out in nature? Where do you draw the line between recognizing how adventitious [and beyond control] your life can be and something more solid upon which to make those crucial distinctions between “this is good”, “this is bad”.
How then is being a “moral person” here not profoundly embedded only in the life you lived, in the experiences you had?
Yes, that’s my point. Your own experiences. And, thus, other experiences instead, other points of view, other paths. And tomorrow, next week, next month, next year you may find yourself having new experiences that [as with me twice] catapult you into an entirely different frame of mind about meaning and purpose in your life.
Instead, objectivist or not, those I construe to be on the One True Path [personal or otherwise] tend to think themselves into believing that what they think and feel here and now, because it sustains for them that crucial measure of comfort and consolation, is the path they will always be on. As though whatever happens to them down the road, nothing can change their minds.
Also, your point here, in my own opinion, does not really address mine at all.
Challenge? In any number of contexts throughout human history, nature doesn’t challenge us so much as pulverize us. And, in extinction events, all but wipes us out. Nature often does not give a damn about us at all. And I still have no real clue as to how, through the Gods and Goddesses, Pagans are able to rationalize the terrible toll nature inflicts on us. Again, with a God/the God there is at least His mysterious ways. And an actual entity one can focus in on. And with secular equivalents like political ideologies there is at least the hope of shaping the world into a better place sans God. But this amorphous Nature/Goddess which you are able to configure into “I” as a “moral person”? Maybe someday I will understand it better, maybe not.
Here’s where I get “stuck”. I make my point above out in what “I” construe to be the deeper end of the philosophical pool…and you respond as you do here? To me this is just another psychologism. A very vague “spiritual” reaction to…to what exactly? Certainly, in my own opinion, not to the point I made.
No, not “whatever I like”. Instead, whatever, given the life that I lived, the aggregate experiences, relationships, and ideas “I” accumulated over all these years, how I came to be predisposed to think and feel about these things.
The same as you.
As for the tools of philosophy, my point has always been to note that for “I” in the is/ought world, they can often be of very limited use, worth, value indeed.
Instead, it is how you configure Nature and the Goddess into your own existential rendition of what it means to be a “moral person” that is of most interest to me. Since you are obviously intelligent, articulate and generally tolerant of other people’s point’s of view, how do you reconcile being on your personal path arriving at your own personal conclusions morally with the fact that in communities with others, Pagan or not, actual laws must be enacted that actually prescribe and proscribe behaviors that result in actual consequences.
I’ve tried to explain why here “I” am fractured and fragmented. I’m simply grappling to understand why you are not.
+++Let’s bring this down to Earth. John is a Pagan and, given his own personal experiences on the path with nature and his own God/Goddess, he comes to believe that abortion is immoral and that he should do everything in his power to bring an end to it. Jane is a Pagan and, given her own personal experiences on the path with nature and her own God/Goddess, she comes to believe that abortion is moral and that she should do everything in her power to protect a woman’s right to choose abortion.
Now, nature itself is such that nearly 1,000,000 babies a year will be aborted “naturally” through miscarriages. And that’s just in the United States.
So, given the personal path that you are on re nature and the Goddess, how do you come to the conclusions that you do regarding the morality of abortion? Or any other value judgments in which Pagans can disagree just as fiercely as those who are not Pagans. And how in any given Pagan community are this differences of opinion dealt with?+++
As a Pagan I hold life, and the life-force, to be sacred, and therefore I oppose abortion. I’m not sure why you mentioned that nature kills a million babies a year by miscarriage, though. Nature kills millions and millions of other people a year through old age and other causes, but this is no justification for murder.
I base all my judgements on the intuition that nature has given me. Other Pagans may well hold different views on abortion and everything else, too, and this fact is not any sort of problem within Paganism, so there is therefore no need to deal with these differences of opinion.
+++This is the part I find most difficult to grasp. With those I construe to be objectivists – re a God/the God, ideology, deontology, Satyr’s “biological imperatives”/genes > memes etc. – they divide the world up between “one of us” [the rational and the moral] and “one of them” [the irrational and immoral]. And everyone on their own One True Path is expected to toe the line. With them, either John must come around to Jane’s point of view or Jane to John’s…whichever is endorsed by those who call the shots in these objectivist communities.
But with you and nature and the Goddess…that sort of back and forth communication is largely a blur to me. Then the part where you seem to acknowledge that had your life been very different you might not have become a Pagan at all. Yet it did unfold as it did and you are. Almost as though it could never have not unfolded as it did. Either as a result of a destiny derived congenitally or given a life lived only as it must be lived.
And that’s largely a “mystical” frame of mind to me. Or in the vicinity of determinism. A visceral, intuitive leap of faith in order to ground “I” to the One True Personal Path.+++
I’m not a determinist, and fully acknowledge that had my life been different, I might not have been a Pagan. And everyone’s path is different too, including their beliefs and opinions.
+++So, what are you saying, that there is no teleological function embedded in nature? In the Goddess? That going back to the Big Bang the laws of nature somehow just evolved here on planet Earth into what we experience as a part of nature ourselves with no essential meaning and purpose “behind” it? And, by extension, there is no essential meaning and purpose “behind” your own life… other than what, existentially, given the manner in which I construe identity as the embodiment of dasein, your Goddess becomes in turn just an experiential construct that you thought up given your own personal experiences out in nature? Where do you draw the line between recognizing how adventitious [and beyond control] your life can be and something more solid upon which to make those crucial distinctions between “this is good”, “this is bad”.+++
The essential meaning and purpose to life is what we choose to give it, because nature has endowed us with the ability to do so. But I didn’t just “think up” nature and the goddess, I experience it directly, the divine, spiritual energy in all things.
I don’t draw any such line that you suggest.
++How then is being a “moral person” here not profoundly embedded only in the life you lived, in the experiences you had?+++
It is, and I’ve never suggested that it isn’t.
+++Yes, that’s my point. Your own experiences. And, thus, other experiences instead, other points of view, other paths. And tomorrow, next week, next month, next year you may find yourself having new experiences that [as with me twice] catapult you into an entirely different frame of mind about meaning and purpose in your life.+++
Indeed. Exciting, isn’t it.
+++Instead, objectivist or not, those I construe to be on the One True Path [personal or otherwise] tend to think themselves into believing that what they think and feel here and now, because it sustains for them that crucial measure of comfort and consolation, is the path they will always be on. As though whatever happens to them down the road, nothing can change their minds.+++
Anything has the potential to change anyone’s mind.
+++Challenge? In any number of contexts throughout human history, nature doesn’t challenge us so much as pulverize us. And, in extinction events, all but wipes us out. Nature often does not give a damn about us at all. And I still have no real clue as to how, through the Gods and Goddesses, Pagans are able to rationalize the terrible toll nature inflicts on us. Again, with a God/the God there is at least His mysterious ways. And an actual entity one can focus in on. And with secular equivalents like political ideologies there is at least the hope of shaping the world into a better place sans God. But this amorphous Nature/Goddess which you are able to configure into “I” as a “moral person”? Maybe someday I will understand it better, maybe not.+++
Without those extinction events, we wouldn’t be here. As humans we have the ability to mitigate the effects of natural disasters and take care of those in need.
With regards to personal gods and goddesses, with whom one can have personal relationships, many Pagans regard these as existing within nature, and they give them many different names, from all the world’s mythologies and pantheons. It is certainly not essential to believe in such dieties to be a Pagan though. I know atheist Pagans, polytheist Pagans, and pantheist Pagans.
+++Here’s where I get “stuck”. I make my point above out in what “I” construe to be the deeper end of the philosophical pool…and you respond as you do here? To me this is just another psychologism. A very vague “spiritual” reaction to…to what exactly? Certainly, in my own opinion, not to the point I made. +++
You are under no obligation to like my answers, but I’m giving them as best as I can.
+++No, not “whatever I like”. Instead, whatever, given the life that I lived, the aggregate experiences, relationships, and ideas “I” accumulated over all these years, how I came to be predisposed to think and feel about these things.
The same as you.+++
You can change what you are predisposed to think by an act of will. Nature has endowed us with consciousness and the ability to choose.
+++As for the tools of philosophy, my point has always been to note that for “I” in the is/ought world, they can often be of very limited use, worth, value indeed.
Instead, it is how you configure Nature and the Goddess into your own existential rendition of what it means to be a “moral person” that is of most interest to me. Since you are obviously intelligent, articulate and generally tolerant of other people’s point’s of view, how do you reconcile being on your personal path arriving at your own personal conclusions morally with the fact that in communities with others, Pagan or not, actual laws must be enacted that actually prescribe and proscribe behaviors that result in actual consequences.
I’ve tried to explain why here “I” am fractured and fragmented. I’m simply grappling to understand why you are not.+++
My morality is derived from my own intuition, informed by my spiritual connection with nature, the goddess.
With regard to society as a whole, laws tend to evolve naturally along with the society, as with English common law. There is no act of parliament making murder illegal, for example, but it is still very much illegal, since it breaches common law.
With regard to Paganism, it has no governing body and no regulations. Different groups within it, of course, will most likely have their own rules, but that’s a different matter.
I mentioned miscarriages and “other causes” because it strikes me as odd for someone on their own personal One True Path with Nature to speak of holding life scared when Nature itself clearly doesn’t seem to hold human life as sacred at all. Instead, as I noted, it pulverizes it over and over and over again. We mere mortals debate over things like vaccination only because Nature brought the covid-19 virus into existence in the first place.
Now, with Christians and many other religious denominations, this is explained as a component of their God’s mysterious ways…or in the other arguments used to encompass theodicy. What of you, the Goddess and Nature here? Is the terrible pain and suffering inflicted on humankind by Nature also just something you can’t explain? Or explain away?
Only with many Christians it is assumed that on the other side, in Paradise, it will all become clearer. What of Nature and the Goddess for you on the other side here?
On the contrary, when Pagans interact with others [Pagans or not] out in the larger society, there is very much a problem: which “rules of behaviors” will prevail through the legal and political sytem? Which behaviors will be rewarded and which punished? Even within a Pagan community itself if Jane becomes pregnant and, given her own personal path through nature, she believes that the clump of cells in her womb is not sacred human life and can be destroyed, while John, given the personal path in nature that he is on, believes the baby in Jane’s womb is sacred life and must come into the community and be among them, what reality will prevail?
And, with most other spiritual paths, the dots between the behaviors chosen on this side of the grave are very much linked to the fate of “I” on the other side of it. What here for Pagans when push comes to shove and either John or Jane prevails? Who will be punished and who rewarded?
Also, what you call “intuition” I call a subjective/subjunctive frame of mind – dasein – derived from the manner in which I understand value judgments related to things like abortion here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
Once again, in my own opinion, you basically avoid altogether responding in depth to the distinction I make above. Instead, in two short sentences, you make this “general statement” about “who you are” as though in acknowledging that you might well have been someone else altogether with very different beliefs and opinion isn’t actually worth pursuing in depth.
Now, I’m not saying that how I see this here is more reasonable than how you see it. I’m only suggesting a possible distinction between being in the shallow end or out the deep end of the philosophical pool in exploring it.
Also, given determinism as I understand it, you would say that you are not a determinist only because, given the laws of nature, you were never able not to say it.
But you acknowledge above that had your experiences in life been different you might well have chosen to give a very different meaning and purpose to your life. Like [for me] when the experiences I had propelled me away from the Christian God toward atheism and then away from Marxism toward existentialism and nihilism. And since I am no less a part of nature than you are how is it not possible that given new experiences you might in turn find yourself propelled away from your understanding of nature and the Goddess to something altogether different?
It seems, instead, to me, that what you do here is to conjure up the idea/belief that the path that you are now on is, again, part of some “mystical” destined fate that you were born with or were never able not to embody whatever experiences you might have had, have now or ever will have. What I construe to be a psychological grounding on the One True Path. A frame of mind I explore on this thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
Well, in that case, we will just have to accept that how we think about the existential implications of this is very, very different.
Thus:
Yes, but only [I suspect] as long as these new experiences keep you on the One True Path with nature and the Goddess.
And if they take you away from them?
Well, back to the “trade off”. On the One True Path you have the comfort and the consolation derived from being on it. On the other hand, off the path, options in life can increase dramatically. You no longer have to base your choices solely on what it means to be “a moral person” on the Path.
But: Only with these increased options might come a more “fractured and fragmented” sense of self, an “I” that is no longer able to think herself into sustaining the comfort and the consolation that comes with being on the path.
What some existentialists call, “the agony of choice in the face of uncertainty”.
Then this:
Sure, when encompassed in a terse “general description” reaction like this, the specific points I raise above are not even explored at all. Much less “in depth”.
Or, rather, so it seems to “me” here and now.
And then the next extinction event in which we go the way of the dinosaurs? And what of all those millions upon millions of truly innocent men, women and children that nature mindlessly mangles and maims or sends to their deaths year after year after year. What of those millions who don’t get cared for at all. All the ability in the world doesn’t matter if nature does not grant you access to those in need.
Okay, but in discussions of these things with me, it’s less what others believe and more what they are actually able to demonstrate [even to themselves] are in fact true. Then the part where what they do believe I attribute more to dasein than to anything that they do manage to rationalize to themselves.
Sure, you can ask me to just accept that. Just as I can ask you to think through my points a bit longer so that your own points are not construed by me to be little more than psychologisms. Or, of course, being “stuck” will just have to do.
For example:
From my own frame of mind we are in two entirely different discussions here. I keep hoping that will change but it doesn’t. And, again, it’s not about what we believe but how we encompass and defend it.
+++I mentioned miscarriages and “other causes” because it strikes me as odd for someone on their own personal One True Path with Nature to speak of holding life scared when Nature itself clearly doesn’t seem to hold human life as sacred at all. Instead, as I noted, it pulverizes it over and over and over again. We mere mortals debate over things like vaccination only because Nature brought the covid-19 virus into existence in the first place.+++
I’m not on a personal “one true path” and it has taken many turns over the years.
Human life is part of nature. Nature doesn’t hold anything sacred, that’s something for humans to do, with an instinct for the numinous that nature has given us.
+++Now, with Christians and many other religious denominations, this is explained as a component of their God’s mysterious ways…or in the other arguments used to encompass theodicy. What of you, the Goddess and Nature here? Is the terrible pain and suffering inflicted on humankind by Nature also just something you can’t explain? Or explain away?+++
I don’t need to “explain away” terrible pain and suffering because at no point have I claimed that nature is wholly benevolent or has any sort of plan for us, or indeed any sort of plan at all.
+++Only with many Christians it is assumed that on the other side, in Paradise. it will all become clearer. What of Nature and the Goddess for you on the other side here?+++
I don’t know for sure if there’s any afterlife. It’ll be interesting to find out.
+++On the contrary, when Pagans interact with others [Pagans or not] out in the larger society, there is very much a problem: which “rules of behaviors” will prevail through the legal and political sytem? Which behaviors will be rewarded and which punished?+++
As with anyone else, they will follow the laws and customs of society at large to the extent that they wish to, or feel that they should. You seem to want me to generalise for all Pagans, but since Pagans are all individuals, I can’t.
+++Even within a Pagan community itself if Jane becomes pregnant and, given her own personal path through nature, she believes that the clump of cells in her womb is not sacred human life and can be destroyed, while John, given the personal path in nature that he is on, believes the baby in Jane’s womb is sacred life and must come into the community and be among them, what reality will prevail?+++
I would assume that Jane would have the abortion, and that John would continue thinking that abortions are wrong.
+++And, with most other spiritual paths, the dots between the behaviors chosen on this side of the grave are very much linked to the fate of “I” on the other side of it. What here for Pagans when push comes to shove and either John or Jane prevails? Who will be punished and who rewarded?+++
Many Pagans accept the principle that what goes around comes around. If you’re nice to people, in general, they’ll be nice back. If you do good things, good things will happen to you. And obviously the converse, too. Some Pagan traditions make it more specific. Wiccans, for example, say that how you act comes back to you threefold, while some Heathens, I think, say ninefold. Others types of Pagans are less specific about such exact numbers, and some don’t accept the idea at all. Whether this happens in this life or another is again a matter of opinion. And how they interpret it with regard to any specific issue, such as abortion, is, again, a matter of personal opinion.
+++Also, what you call “intuition” I call a subjective/subjunctive frame of mind – dasein – derived from the manner in which I understand value judgments related to things like abortion here:+++
You are free to call it what you like.
I’m sorry, but I’m not going to read any other thread in order to participate in this one.
+++Once again, in my own opinion, you basically avoid altogether responding in depth to the distinction I make above. Instead, in two short sentences, you make this “general statement” about “who you are” as though in acknowledging that you might well have been someone else altogether with very different beliefs and opinion isn’t actually worth pursuing in depth.
Now, I’m not saying that how I see this here is more reasonable than how you see it. I’m only suggesting a possible distinction between being in the shallow end or out the deep end of the philosophical pool in exploring it.+++
What’s the point of speculating about what my opinions might have been had my life been different? It’s surely enough to say that yes, they undoubtedly would have been different. And if you want to thrash around in the deep end of the philosophical pool, endlessly going round in circles, that’s up to you. Maybe you should learn to swim, instead.
+++Also, given determinism as I understand it, you would say that you are not a determinist only because, given the laws of nature, you were never able not to say it.+++
Or not.
+++But you acknowledge above that had your experiences in life been different you might well have chosen to give a very different meaning and purpose to your life. Like [for me] when the experiences I had propelled me away from the Christian God toward atheism and then away from Marxism toward existentialism and nihilism. And since I am no less a part of nature than you are how is it not possible that given new experiences you might in turn find yourself propelled away from your understanding of nature and the Goddess to something altogether different?+++
Yes, it’s pefectly possible that I might change my opinions on nature or anything else. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this already.
+++It seems, instead, to me, that what you do here is to conjure up the idea/belief that the path that you are now on is, again, part of some “mystical” destined fate that you were born with or were never able not to embody whatever experiences you might have had, have now or ever will have. What I construe to be a psychological grounding on the One True Path. A frame of mind I explore on this thread:+++
I don’t believe in pre-destined fate and am very much of the opinion that our fate is what we make it, playing the hand we’re dealt, that is, that nature has given us.
Again, I’m not going to read any other thread in order to participate in this one.
+++Yes, but only [I suspect] as long as these new experiences keep you on the One True Path with nature and the Goddess.+++
That’s your opinion, and you’re free to hold it.
+++And if they take you away from them?
Well, back to the “trade off”. On the One True Path you have the comfort and the consolation derived from being on it. On the other hand, off the path, options in life can increase dramatically. You no longer have to base your choices solely on what it means to be “a moral person” on the Path.
But: Only with these increased options might come a more “fractured and fragmented” sense of self, an “I” that is no longer able to think herself into sustaining the comfort and the consolation that comes with being on the path.
What some existentialists call, “the agony of choice in the face of uncertainty”.+++
Because you’re a really good advert for it, right? Sorry if that sounded a bit mean, but in response to you trying to drag me down into your hole, which is something you’ve said many times, I feel justified in saying it.
You also seem to be assuming that being a moral person is somehow undesirable, and that being immoral makes you feel better.
+++And then the next extinction event in which we go the way of the dinosaurs? And what of all those millions upon millions of truly innocent men, women and children that nature mindlessly mangles and maims or sends to their deaths year after year after year. What of those millions who don’t get cared for at all. All the ability in the world doesn’t matter if nature does not grant you access to those in need.+++
The implication of you asking this, yet again, is that I somehow need to explain why nature isn’t wholly benevolent.
+++Okay, but in discussions of these things with me, it’s less what others believe and more what they are actually able to demonstrate [even to themselves] are in fact true. Then the part where what they do believe I attribute more to dasein than to anything that they do manage to rationalize to themselves.+++
Paganism is mainly about practice, rather than belief. Pagans have no obligation to believe in the gods that they choose to worship. Many, for example, regard them as symbolic representations. Others reserve judgment as to their existence, and others do indeed believe in them.
+++Sure, you can ask me to just accept that. Just as I can ask you to think through my points a bit longer so that your own points are not construed by me to be little more than psychologisms. Or, of course, being “stuck” will just have to do.+++
The problem is that you keep on asking the same things over and over again, which I’ve answered many times before. That’s why I limited this exchange to six posts each.
+++From my own frame of mind we are in two entirely different discussions here. I keep hoping that will change but it doesn’t. And, again, it’s not about what we believe but how we encompass and defend it.
As I say, two very different discussions indeed.+++
Or perhaps you simply don’t like my answers, because you’re failing to change my mind.
I think that there is no real disagreement here, Maia and Iambigious, because of the way the relationships between natural modality and cumulative ethics are based on ex-post facto argument.
We could just as well resort to analyze a cultural causation of elements relating to personal analysis, as a way to overcome this appearent abyss which did not exist prior to it’s preveptual-cognative evolution.
The personal identity has evolved alongside the precepts values and political economy which bracket them siguationally, and we call that 'siguational ethics.
There is nothing unnatural about it, once this pre-ordinate link is realized.
Of course I may be off a bit, but not totally wrong, for the correspondence Jas a-priori value , escotilogically speaking.
This is what I grope to understand better. As I recall, you have come to conclude that all human life is sacred and thus that aborting it is immoral. Now, with many Christians, this frame of mind comes about from their conclusions regarding God and abortion. They have access to an actual Scripture. Abortion is a sin for many and, on Judgment Day, they may be denied access to Heaven. And maybe even sent to Hell. Okay, how does this all unfold in your head in regard to nature and the Goddess? How is this energy you feel in communing with them then actually translated into the conclusion you have come to about abortion? And if you are not on the true path here, what would you call it? After all, aren’t there Pagans on their own path with nature who construe abortion to be moral? And one thing that seems clear [to me] is that Nature itself is amoral. There does not appear to be any intent, any overarching meaning and purpose “behind” Nature when it comes to all of those miscarriages.
An “instinct for the numinous that nature has given us”. Now, this is something I would expect from Satyr and his ilk. But you seem far more committed to translating this particular psychologism into a spiritual reaction to Nature rather than a more political reaction. You note that Nature holds nothing sacred and yet through nature and the Goddess, you do. How does that make sense to you? You would never choose an abortion yourself but nature aborts the unborn by the millions each year. For you, life is sacred, for Nature it is not.
Well, you can choose not to explain it, but that won’t stop those like me from asking for an explanation. You commune with Nature [or whatever you call the rituals you pursue] and out of that you come to think of yourself as a “moral person”. But nature itself is amoral.
Again, with Christians, they acknowledge the terrible pain and suffering in the world around them. But, given the One True Path that they are on, they are able to reconcile a loving, just, and merciful God and this pain and suffering through His “mysterious ways”. What of you and nature? Nature is not perceived by you to be loving just and merciful and it has no teleological intent at all. But there you are acquiring from this amoral nature and the Goddess the impetus to live your life as a moral person in a loving, just and merciful way. How do you connect the dots here?
Okay, but with those like Christians, it’s not just interesting to find out, it’s vital. So they have faith in a God/the God/their God and this provides them with the path to salvation. Whereas with Pagans any path that they happen to be on is the right path for them. Even if on that path they are opposed to any number of things that you believe on this side of the grave. So, if there is a life after death, any behaviors at all that they choose on this side are okay with nature. You’re on your path and are a “moral person”, they’re on they’re path and might think of you as an “immoral person”. But Nature just shrugs and says, “so be it”?
Then this part:
No, I’m pointing out how, for you, they “wish to” given the path they are on as Pagans, whereas for me they “wish to” given the fact that they would not even be on this path at all except for the aggregation of personal experiences in their lives that led them to it. The part I attribute to dasein. Then the part where even in a Pagan community itself certain behaviors will be rewarded or punished. But how does this make sense if in being on their own personal path they are merely embodying what Nature and the Gods/Goddesses instilled in them as the right behaviors to choose?
It’s like “anything goes” if that’s where your own path takes you vs. the real world where, existentially, in a particular community, “anything goes” can never work.
Thus…
Okay, but within the Pagan community [or the larger society], mores and laws exist to reward or punish them. It’s not just what they believe “in their head” on the path, but the actual consequences that result from acting on those beliefs. It seems absurd to actually punish someone for acting only in accordance with their own sincere conclusions but “for all practical purposes” there’s just no getting around it if the community wants to sustain itself in the least dysfunctional manner.
Again, though, what does this really have to do with my point above? For Jane the good thing is having the abortion. For John, the father of the unborn baby/clump of cells, the good thing is her giving birth. They have both come to their convictions sincerely on their separates with nature. But both abortion and birth can’t be the outcome. So either within the community Jane is rewarded or John is rewarded. But given nature’s seemingly mindless, amoral agenda either result is interchangeable.
Then the part where within a Pagan community, they are any better at pinning down when, from conception to delivery, the unborn actually becomes human life itself.
It’s not what we call things, it’s how we defend what we call things. And here you either are or are not admitting that you may well have not become a Pagan at all if your life had been different.
Now, if you are, then how is this not a manifestation of dasein? If you are not then how do you demonstrate that the path you are on is necessarily embedded in a congenital destiny or an existential fate derived from nature…nature that has no teleological component and thus seemingly could not care less about the path you end up on.
That doesn’t really surprise me. The threads I note are, in my own opinion, very much out in the deep end of the philosophical pool.
One goes around and around in circles here only to the extent that one stays up in the clouds of abstraction. Once the points I raise in my signature threads are explored given the actual experiences you had, then you can imagine another set of experiences that would have, say, brought you considerably closer to my point of view. And once that is acknowledged, to ask “what’s the point” seems absurd to me. It’s the whole point when your moral, political and spiritual value judgments are derived largely from the profoundly problematic nature of the life that you did live.
Here, in my view, the only manner in which one might reasonably shunt aside the consequences of this is 1] coming up [philosophically or otherwise] with a frame of mind that all rational men and women are obligation to share or 2] falling back on the mystical assumption that you are what you are [a Pagan, a moral nihilist] because you were born that way or the life that you lived could not have been other than one in which you had to become what you are.
The latter in my view being the way in which to avoid going out into the deep end of the pool altogether.
So…
Okay, then how far removed can your conviction that you are a “moral person” be from a “fractured and fragmented” self? You admit that the only reason you believe what you do now [about abortion and all other conflicting goods] is because of the life that you lived. That had it been different your moral, political and spiritual values might be completely at odds with what they are now. And, that, indeed, given new experiences you might reject your current views of nature and the Goddess and, instead, believe, well, who knows what?
My suggestion here is only that unless there is a font – God, a spiritual path, ideology, deontology, Satyr’s gene > memes nture etc. – then we never really do know what is around the next corner. And thus we can never be really certain about what we believe now. Then it’s just a matter of how far out on the existential limb you take this.
Again, you admit that your life is what you make it but that, in turn, what you choose to make it is basically in sync with the points I just raised above. New experiences down the road and you look back amazed that you could ever have chosen to become a Pagan. Just as I became amazed that I could ever have chosen to become a Christian or a Marxist.
And, here, now, I can’t rule out an argument from you or others who makes me be amazed that I could ever have chosen to become a moral and political and spiritual nihilist. Either that I succeed in bringing you or others closer to how “I” think about these things.
Thus:
1] I win
2] I win
Drag you down into it? That’s your word. What I am hoping for is that you are able to persuade me that there may well be a way to look at life that takes me up out of the hole I’ve dug myself into. But if I persuade you instead that being down in the hole with me is a reasonable frame of mind, I’ve got someone I can empathize with. And you’d have so many more options to chose from because your choices would not revolve all around being on the path.
And, unlike Satyr, whose intent basically is to bring you over to his path, my intent is existentially pathless. After all, given that your experiences would still be very different from mine, how could I possibly judge anything that to do?
Again, we would need a context. What, given one or another set of circumstances, is deem by any particular individual to be desirable or undesirable? What chosen behaviors make someone feel better or worse?
My frame of mind here is to aim in the general direction of moderation, negotiation and compromise. Trying to work things out when faced with disagreements. Something for me, something for you and others. I just have no illusions as a “fractured and fragmented” person about how profoundly problematic this would be.
No, I’m noting yet again that nature seems to me to be amoral. And unfolds into the future beyond anything that might be described as either meaningful or purposeful. So, how on Earth can someone out in nature come to think of their own life as benevolent or meaningful or purposeful? Other then in the manner in which I root this [once again] in the points I make in my signature threads.
Or, of course, in the manner in which Satyr does: by insisting that only those who think exactly as he does about the staggeringly complex and profoundly problematic relationship between genes and memes, nature and nurture can be accepted by him as “one of us”.
Yes, but the points I raise above about an amoral nature producing Pagans who practice what, existentially, they have come to construe as moral or immoral doesn’t go away.
This part:
Here of course we will have to agree to disagree on what constitutes an effective answer. And, with some, it can be six posts or sixty posts.
+++This is what I grope to understand better. As I recall, you have come to conclude that all human life is sacred and thus that aborting it is immoral. Now, with many Christians, this frame of mind comes about from their conclusions regarding God and abortion. They have access to an actual Scripture. Abortion is a sin for many and, on Judgment Day, they may be denied access to Heaven. And maybe even sent to Hell. Okay, how does this all unfold in your head in regard to nature and the Goddess? How is this energy you feel in communing with them then actually translated into the conclusion you have come to about abortion?+++
The energy I feel is the life-force, which is why I think that killing is immoral.
+++And if you are not on the true path here, what would you call it?+++
I don’t call it anything.
+++After all, aren’t there Pagans on their own path with nature who construe abortion to be moral?+++
I haven’t actually met a Pagan who has expressed a belief that abortion is ok, though to be fair, it’s not a subject I tend to bring up very much. I’ve certainly met a few who hold strongly anti-abortion views, though. Technically, therefore, I have no personal evidence that any Pagan is pro-abortion, though obviously, I’m sure that there are some.
+++And one thing that seems clear [to me] is that Nature itself is amoral. There does not appear to be any intent, any overarching meaning and purpose “behind” Nature when it comes to all of those miscarriages.+++
Correct.
+++An “instinct for the numinous that nature has given us”. Now, this is something I would expect from Satyr and his ilk.+++
I expect that most Pagans would say something similar.
+++But you seem far more committed to translating this particular psychologism into a spiritual reaction to Nature rather than a more political reaction.+++
What’s a psychologism?
+++You note that Nature holds nothing sacred and yet through nature and the Goddess, you do. How does that make sense to you?+++
As a part of nature we perceive our connection to nature as numinous, because we have conscious thought and the means of perceiving things.
+++You would never choose an abortion yourself but nature aborts the unborn by the millions each year. For you, life is sacred, for Nature it is not.+++
The ability to recognise sacredness is human, bestowed on us by nature, which allows us to regard nature, and life, as sacred.
+++Well, you can choose not to explain it, but that won’t stop those like me from asking for an explanation. You commune with Nature [or whatever you call the rituals you pursue] and out of that you come to think of yourself as a “moral person”. But nature itself is amoral.+++
If you want an explanation for natural disasters, ask geologists, climatologists, and so on.
+++Again, with Christians, they acknowledge the terrible pain and suffering in the world around them. But, given the One True Path that they are on, they are able to reconcile a loving, just, and merciful God and this pain and suffering through His “mysterious ways”. What of you and nature? Nature is not perceived by you to be loving just and merciful and it has no teleological intent at all. But there you are acquiring from this amoral nature and the Goddess the impetus to live your life as a moral person in a loving, just and merciful way. How do you connect the dots here?+++
In the ways that I’ve already mentioned. That’s just the same question, yet again.
+++Okay, but with those like Christians, it’s not just interesting to find out, it’s vital. So they have faith in a God/the God/their God and this provides them with the path to salvation. Whereas with Pagans any path that they happen to be on is the right path for them. Even if on that path they are opposed to any number of things that you believe on this side of the grave. So, if there is a life after death, any behaviors at all that they choose on this side are okay with nature. You’re on your path and are a “moral person”, they’re on they’re path and might think of you as an “immoral person”. But Nature just shrugs and says, “so be it”?+++
You’re asking me to speculate on something that I don’t even know exists, namely, what happens in the afterlife. My instinct tells me that we all continue to evolve, but I have no proof of that at all. The best thing to do, I think, is live your life as best you can for the here and now.
+++No, I’m pointing out how, for you, they “wish to” given the path they are on as Pagans, whereas for me they “wish to” given the fact that they would not even be on this path at all except for the aggregation of personal experiences in their lives that led them to it. The part I attribute to dasein.+++
Those two things are non mutually exclusive.
+++Then the part where even in a Pagan community itself certain behaviors will be rewarded or punished. But how does this make sense if in being on their own personal path they are merely embodying what Nature and the Gods/Goddesses instilled in them as the right behaviors to choose?+++
Paganism has no governing body and no mechanism for rewarding or punishing. I’m sure I’ve pointed this out before.
+++It’s like “anything goes” if that’s where your own path takes you vs. the real world where, existentially, in a particular community, “anything goes” can never work.+++
And yet in practice, it’s not like that at all.
+++Okay, but within the Pagan community [or the larger society], mores and laws exist to reward or punish them. It’s not just what they believe “in their head” on the path, but the actual consequences that result from acting on those beliefs. It seems absurd to actually punish someone for acting only in accordance with their own sincere conclusions but “for all practical purposes” there’s just no getting around it if the community wants to sustain itself in the least dysfunctional manner.+++
As I stated above, there is no mechanism within the Pagan movement as a whole for dishing out punishment.
+++Again, though, what does this really have to do with my point above? For Jane the good thing is having the abortion. For John, the father of the unborn baby/clump of cells, the good thing is her giving birth.+++
You didn’t say that John was the father in your previous post.
+++They have both come to their convictions sincerely on their separates with nature. But both abortion and birth can’t be the outcome. So either within the community Jane is rewarded or John is rewarded. But given nature’s seemingly mindless, amoral agenda either result is interchangeable.+++
No, because there is no means of rewarding or punishing within the Pagan movement as a whole.
+++Then the part where within a Pagan community, they are any better at pinning down when, from conception to delivery, the unborn actually becomes human life itself.+++
A better question might be, at what point does it cease to be human life, in order to become so again at some arbitrary point?
+++It’s not what we call things, it’s how we defend what we call things. And here you either are or are not admitting that you may well have not become a Pagan at all if your life had been different.+++
I am indeed saying, and have said so a number of times already, that I may not have become a Pagan had my life been different.
+++Now, if you are, then how is this not a manifestation of dasein? If you are not then how do you demonstrate that the path you are on is necessarily embedded in a congenital destiny or an existential fate derived from nature…nature that has no teleological component and thus seemingly could not care less about the path you end up on.+++
I’m still not exactly sure what dasein is.
+++One goes around and around in circles here only to the extent that one stays up in the clouds of abstraction. Once the points I raise in my signature threads are explored given the actual experiences you had, then you can imagine another set of experiences that would have, say, brought you considerably closer to my point of view. And once that is acknowledged, to ask “what’s the point” seems absurd to me. It’s the whole point when your moral, political and spiritual value judgments are derived largely from the profoundly problematic nature of the life that you did live.+++
It is indeed possible that had my life been different I might have had opinions more similar to yours. But it wasn’t, and thankfully, I don’t.
Why do you describe my life as “profoundly problematic”?
+++Here, in my view, the only manner in which one might reasonably shunt aside the consequences of this is 1] coming up [philosophically or otherwise] with a frame of mind that all rational men and women are obligation to share or 2] falling back on the mystical assumption that you are what you are [a Pagan, a moral nihilist] because you were born that way or the life that you lived could not have been other than one in which you had to become what you are.+++
I prefer a third option, namely, that our lives might indeed have been different, but it just so happens that they weren’t.
+++Okay, then how far removed can your conviction that you are a “moral person” be from a “fractured and fragmented” self? You admit that the only reason you believe what you do now [about abortion and all other conflicting goods] is because of the life that you lived. That had it been different your moral, political and spiritual values might be completely at odds with what they are now. And, that, indeed, given new experiences you might reject your current views of nature and the Goddess and, instead, believe, well, who knows what?+++
Again, you keep saying that had my life been different I would hold different opinions, as if this were some sort of profound philosophical insight. To me it’s just, well, obvious.
+++My suggestion here is only that unless there is a font – God, a spiritual path, ideology, deontology, Satyr’s gene > memes nture etc. – then we never really do know what is around the next corner. And thus we can never be really certain about what we believe now. Then it’s just a matter of how far out on the existential limb you take this.
Again, you admit that your life is what you make it but that, in turn, what you choose to make it is basically in sync with the points I just raised above. New experiences down the road and you look back amazed that you could ever have chosen to become a Pagan. Just as I became amazed that I could ever have chosen to become a Christian or a Marxist.+++
Please refer to my previous answer.
+++And, here, now, I can’t rule out an argument from you or others who makes me be amazed that I could ever have chosen to become a moral and political and spiritual nihilist. Either that I succeed in bringing you or others closer to how “I” think about these things.
Thus:
1] I win
2] I win
Drag you down into it? That’s your word. What I am hoping for is that you are able to persuade me that there may well be a way to look at life that takes me up out of the hole I’ve dug myself into.+++
I’m not here to persuade you of anything.
+++But if I persuade you instead that being down in the hole with me is a reasonable frame of mind, I’ve got someone I can empathize with. And you’d have so many more options to chose from because your choices would not revolve all around being on the path.+++
If you think that being on my path limits me, then you haven’t been listening to anything I’ve been saying.
+++And, unlike Satyr, whose intent basically is to bring you over to his path, my intent is existentially pathless. After all, given that your experiences would still be very different from mine, how could I possibly judge anything that to do?+++
On the contrary, your path is the most rigid and depressing I’ve ever encountered.
+++Again, we would need a context. What, given one or another set of circumstances, is deem by any particular individual to be desirable or undesirable? What chosen behaviors make someone feel better or worse?
My frame of mind here is to aim in the general direction of moderation, negotiation and compromise. Trying to work things out when faced with disagreements. Something for me, something for you and others. I just have no illusions as a “fractured and fragmented” person about how profoundly problematic this would be.+++
Moderation, negotiation and compromise are always best, if possible.
+++No, I’m noting yet again that nature seems to me to be amoral. And unfolds into the future beyond anything that might be described as either meaningful or purposeful. So, how on Earth can someone out in nature come to think of their own life as benevolent or meaningful or purposeful? Other then in the manner in which I root this [once again] in the points I make in my signature threads.
Or, of course, in the manner in which Satyr does: by insisting that only those who think exactly as he does about the staggeringly complex and profoundly problematic relationship between genes and memes, nature and nurture can be accepted by him as “one of us”.+++
I think of my own life as benevolent, meaningful and purposeful because I choose to do so.
+++Yes, but the points I raise above about an amoral nature producing Pagans who practice what, existentially, they have come to construe as moral or immoral doesn’t go away.+++
They could very easily go away, though, if you stopped asking about them.
+++Here of course we will have to agree to disagree on what constitutes an effective answer. And, with some, it can be six posts or sixty posts.+++
And I suspect we’ll disagree about what constitutes an effective question, too.
Anyway, that was rather a long one. Can you trim it a bit next time, please? And also, ask something different.
I call nature the goddess but this is not intended as a personification. And I do indeed feel uncomfortable saying that nature is amoral, as it implies some sort of choice.
Again, in my opinion, the gap between my idea of an “in depth” discussion here and [apparently] yours. How am I to respond to something like this in a philosophy forum?
A thread entitled “moral philosophy in the lives we live”.
I’d call it the path that you believe you are on here and now because the path you were on before over the course of your life predisposed you to be on it; and that any new path you find yourself on down the road might well take you off of it altogether.
“There’s an old adage in the Pagan community that says if you invite ten Pagans to an event, you’ll get fifteen different opinions. That’s not too far from the truth. Wiccans and Pagans are people just like everyone else, and so each will have a different perspective on current events.”
But that just brings me around to rewarding and punishing conflicted behaviors in a Pagan community when everyone is entitled to be on their own path, but not all behaviors will be/can be tolerated.
So, nature – and the Goddess? – are amoral. But from them you derive your own moral narrative? How can that even be possible? Again, imagine a Christian believing that her God is amoral but insisting that her own value judgments reflect that of a “moral person”. And, as well, that other Christians who hold completely conflicting value judgments are also “moral persons”. Imagine interactions in that Christian community.
In that case, we would need a context in which to explore the existential implications of it more substantively.
Basically, the distinction I make between being in the shallow end or the deep end of the philosophical pool.
On the other hand, I’m the first to admit that my own distinction here is no less a subjective/subjunctive “leap of faith” derived from dasein.
I don’t think that this is actually an attempt to answer my question. Just another psychologism. A way to not explain something that you really can’t explain. But, yes, that’s just me. Your answer need only satisfy you. And there’s no way I can can get around that because I believe that many of the answers that those on their own true path give to themselves are meant more to sustain their own comfort and consolation than to examine what they believe “in their head” in depth.
Yes, but you are a part of nature. And nature is amoral. Yet this “recognition” somehow allows you to think of yourself as a “moral person”. So: How exactly does nature go about bestowing and allowing this? Again, for Christians, the font is a God, the God, their God. But your font is Nature. An amoral, essentially meaningless and purposeless nature. I don’t understand how you can rationalize this other than through your own rendition of a more or less blind leap of faith. Or through your own rendition of determinism. Nature somehow just brought you into the world destined to become a Pagan. Or put you on the path postpartum.
But these folks, by and large, do not concern themselves with things spiritual and moral.
Yes, and I ask it because I am hoping that you will go deeper and think through your answers beyond what “I” construe to be psychologisms. The ways that you’ve mentioned above may seem adequate to you, but not to me. Again, from my own prejudiced perspective, we are in two very different discussions here.
But almost all of us do that. Here we are on this side of the grave knowing that it is all perfectly natural to die. And knowing that when we do die, all of the things and all of the people that we love and cherish may well be obliterated [for us] for all the rest of eternity. Nature’s way. But what if there are spiritual/religious paths that we can be on that reconfigure death instead into the rest of our lives on the other side?
What then on this side of the grave will bring that about? Presto! Countless spiritual and religious denominations pop up over the centuries to provide us with an answer, the answer, my answer. But with Pagans however it would seem that any answer they come up with when confronted with “how ought one to live?” is the right answer.
Only, again, on this side of the grave, “any answer” won’t do at all. Even within communities composed entirely of Pagans some behaviors will be punished and others rewarded. How could it not be that way? Either Jane on her path is rewarded and permitted to abort her unborn baby/clump of cells or John on his path is rewarded and Jane is required to give birth.
Perhaps, but, for me, the only reason someone is on the Pagan path at all is because their life did predispose them to be on it. Given all of the countless variables in their life they were not either able to fully understand or control.
Okay, but, in my opinion, that does not really address my question. If Pagans are on personal paths that bring them to opposite sides regarding any number of behaviors revolving around conflicting goods, why should someone be punished for a behavior sincerely derived from the path that they were on? But out in the real world we can’t all just justify what we do by in insisting that morally, legally all personal paths are interchangeable.
Okay, given the community that you live in and interact with others in, does “anything goes” prevail in the behaviors that you and others choose? No, I suspect that certain behaviors will get you rewards and others punishments. Either legally or otherwise.
Only in make believe Pagan communities like the one portrayed in the Wicker Man will every single member of the community think exactly the same way about every single value judgment under the sun. Only the “outsider” with his Christian God is permitted to not share the community’s ethos. And we both know what happens to him.
Thus…
And how does that change the point that I raise?
What difference does that really make given the argument I explore. Both, as Pagans on their own personal paths, have conflicting assessments of the good. But one is rewarded and one is punished by the community depending of whether Jane has an abortion or is made to give birth. It can’t be both, right?
To wit:
Look, one way or another, within the community, Jane will either be rewarded with her abortion or John will be rewarded with a daughter or a son. A “means” will have to exist to make it one or another.
As though Pagans are any more insightful here than all the rest of us. It either is an arbitrary point rooted in where any particular one of us as dasein draws the line or there actually is a point that either scientists or philosophers or Pagans or non Pagans can demarcate.
Okay, then you seem to be accepting that that you might instead have thought yourself into digging the same hole that I am in. Or that, given new experiences, you might end up digging it down the road. And if that’s the case, we at least have that much in common.
Which you do not feel obligated to explore on this thread. And, in that case, we’re stuck. Bacause I don’t think I can explain it better here than I did there.
No it wasn’t. But we clearly think very differently about the part where, had your life been different, you might have come to think like me. And that is because it means acknowledging in turn that if experiences in your life down the road are very different you might still come around to my frame of mind. Just as if things in my life are very different I might come around to yours.
And how is life – “I” in the is/ought world – not problematic in that respect. How profoundly problematic then depends on how profoundly different things become for you. As you noted on another thread the covid pandemic tweaked the lives of many of us. And there are experiences a lot more problematic than that that can have an impact on our lives that we can scarcely imagine here and now. Like, for me, before and after Song Be.
Thus…
Sure, if that works for you fine. But from my frame of mind it works for you only because it is but one more psychologism enabling you to avoid going out into deeper waters of our problematic lives.
’
We clearly think about the existential implications of this for our moral, political and spiritual value judgments differently. Maybe someday that gap will be closed maybe not. For me however that often comes down to the extent to which, one way or another, someone is intent on keeping their own “I” as far removed from being “fractured and fragmented” as they can.
Please consider reconfiguring that particular psychologism into a more in depth exploration into dasein and your very own existential contraption Pagan Self.
Yes, you can simply point out that I am on my path, you are on yours and that need be as far as you go. But, in a philosophy forum, that’s not even close to as far as you can go.
Come on, Maia, if from nature and the Goddess, you have come to think of yourself as “a moral person” than how do you not obligate yourself to choose only those behaviors that you have thought yourself into believing are good rather than bad? That’s the whole point of being on the path, isn’t it? Only, in a manner I still fail to understand, this moral persona you embody comes from an amoral entity that has absolutely no essential meaning or purpose embedded in it at all.
Well, if you are actually unable to distinguish his own fulminating fanatic objectivist path from my own “fractured and fragmented” one, I’'l leave that up to him to explain.
As for him and you, I believe this…
…speaks volumes.
Sure, I may be missing his point, but I suspect that he is mocking you here. He is noting the distinction between Lyssa [real or not] who was almost always out in the deep end of the philosophical pool and you, someone he can only try to…nudge out there?
But then back to this: we would need a context.
To me, another psychologism.
Sure, stop asking questions that make you feel less comforted and consoled in being on your own one true path, enabling you perhaps to keep your Self intact all the way to the grave. Or, instead, don’t call it the “one true path” at all. Even though for all practical purposes that is exactly what it is.
Something we can surely both agree on.
Well, there’s only one more anyway.
And why should I ask something different when I fully suspect but more psychologisms from you in the way of “answers”?
But, I’ll try to make my answers shorter if you’ll try to make your answers longer.
Yes. That choice is also implied when saying that “nature inflicts” things on us or that “nature aborts”.
Spontaneous abortions, disasters, disease are simply a part of nature itself … part of the cycle of creation,existence and destruction. The cycle of birth, life and death.
To say that nature is amoral is not to project human qualities on it, but to NOT project those qualities. It is to say that nature is neither moral nor immoral, because morality and immorality do not apply to nature as a whole, only to a tiny subset of sentient creatures.
It doesn’t really, though. It’s just to say that the question of morality or immorality when applied to nature outside of its sentient creatures makes no sense. Just ask yourself: Is the planet Saturn moral? Or is it immoral? But it seems evident that the question makes no sense. So Saturn is amoral, which is just to say that questions of morality or immorality do not apply to it. It’s a category error.
Although, of course, Saturn is also a Roman god, who could also be described as amoral, since he rules over the cycles of time, of birth, life and death. As does his planet in astrology, among other things.
That’s definitely better, though perhaps nonmoral is the best. Even though acts of nature are often subject to moral criticism, they really shouldn’t be.