Well, my point revolves around clarity:
Clear to me [re the OP] is the extent to which the objectivists are able to translate their didactic intellectual contraptions into an argument that integrates their words and the world that we live in. At least as it relates to conflicting behaviors derived from conflicting value judgments.
Now, if one is asked to make a philosophical determination regarding the morality of abortion, one can claim an argument exists that encompasses all abortions universally, or one can claim [as folks like von rivers often did here] that, while a universal morality does not exist, it is still possible to attain an objective assessment pertaining to each particular abortion.
But consider:
In the United States, about half of all pregnancies are unintended. Of all unintended pregnancies, 4 in 10 are aborted. There are approximately 1.21 million abortions in America each year.
So, per the von rivers perspective, there are approximately 1.2 million objective moral truths a year. And that’s just in the United States.
And what then are the “epistemological” parameters of all of this? What is the “serious philosopher” to make of it?
There are things that we can all agree on with respect to conflciting value judgments because they revolve around actual empirical facts, or logical truths, or demonstratable propositions.
But we do not all agree even in those cases. I stated this clearly and it is the case. This is not only in philosophical discussions.
Yes, that’s true. And I have addressed this issue on other threads. For example, Mary might have in fact been pregnant and she might have in fact induced an abortion. But only Mary was ever aware of this. So, even here, God is necessary, isn’t He? Still, either Mary was pregnant or she was not, either she induced the abortion or she did not. How are we able in turn [philosophically] to determine if Mary’s abortion was or was not moral? I always come back to that distinction, right? The one that seems considerably more rooted in the objective truth rather than the subjective opinion.
Makes it go away. I think that is a very odd formulation. I have no idea if this is the case, but it sounds like your political hopes are being brought into a philosophical discussion. There is some kind of conflation: political or interpersonal effectiveness is being conflated with truth value.
Bring it down to earth and [in my view] it becomes considerably less confusing.
Some argue that abortion is immoral. The reason? We should not kill the unborn.
Some argue that abortion is moral. The reason? Women should not be forced to give birth.
But we can’t live in a world where both points of view prevail.
So, Mr. Philosopher, what is to be done?How does one side here make the point that the other side raises go away?
Iamb, I don’t know how I could possibly be more clear in the two posts I wrote about this. Yes, you are making a category error. You’ve heard of solipsism, idealism, Zeno and Parmenidies thought motion was not real, some physicists think there is no universe but rather a hologram on the outside of an empty sphere, Feyarabend and others are very critical of scientific empiricism, some people think they are Jesus or inanimate objects and so on. GEtting arguments to go away is a practical interpersonal perhaps rhetoric/power focused issue. And a radically utopian one, though it is the category issue I am focused on.
Okay, I am still, technically, making this “category error”. My epistemology is still out of whack.
But let’s get back to this:
Some argue that abortion is immoral. The reason? We should not kill the unborn.
Some argue that abortion is moral. The reason? Women should not be forced to give birth.
But we can’t live in a world where both points of view prevail.
So, Mr. Philosopher, what is to be done?
Now, how would a serious philosopher well-schooled in all branches of epistemolgy respond to that and not make a single solitary “category error” at all? That’s what I am after, of course.
As I note time and again, my chief aim here is to discover the extent to which the tools of philosophy are or are not applicable in making a moral determination when human behaviors come into conflict over value judgments. And then the extend to which our individual value judgments might be embedded in the manner in which I construe dasein. And then, finally, the extent to which my “dasein dilemma” might be deemed unreasonable.
I welcome all epistemologists and serious philosophers in exploring this with me. But sooner or later they have to take their technical excellence down to earth. They can’t all be James S. Saint, right?
Discussions are useful [in a world sans God] because mere mortals have no choice but to pursue them. At least if they choose in to interact socially, politically and economically around others.
Discussions like this, especially in the way they are prioritized by most modern educated people are not a good way to arrive at new positions. One can see this in the repetition of statements over what I would guess is approaching a decade of online stating. I have made suggestions for how one might approach learning in other ways.
You are a postmodernist - as far as epistemology. You are using a modernist, logocentric approach in the use of language and learning. You state that this way of learning is inevitable. This idea that the process you are engaging in is a useful one or the only potential useful one is a product of your dasein. I have tried to give you an experience, via my posts, of another way of looking at learning and interacting - likely too much on my side in a modernist format - and you keep presenting your process as, essentially, the closest to objective we have. I disagree. You are not will to focus your postmodern nihilism at the processes you use to learn. You take this as given, just as much as other people take their modes of learning and interacting as given. There is no scientific consensus to support your position on the best way to learn/interact with others, and in fact most cognitive science related to learning speaks against the way you approach learning. That we must have new experiences to change our minds and this must prioritize new experiences beyond new words and new orders of words. (not that there has been much change in the order of words you use and given that most of the minds you will encounter (and the format of an online forum) will be modernist, logocentric, beliefs are changed via rational argument types you are not even getting new logocentric experiences.
Yes, well this [to me] is precisely the sort of didactic rhetoric I have come to expect from the folks at KTS. What in the world does it have to do with discussions that revolve around conflicting value judgments in a world sans God?
And while in fact it may well have a great deal to do with them, when do we get to explore this pertaining to an issue like abortion “down here”? I’m still not really certain what your own ideas are here. What would the optimal argument sound like free of all category errors?
Get the irony. I keep trying to get you to look at the possible assumptions coming from your dasein as it relates to the way you approach things here and you come back as if it is the only way to do things.
Obviously, given the number of times in the past that I have changed my mind regarding the relationship between dasein, conflicting goods and political economy, I am more than willing to acknowledge that I might change my mind again. That frame of mind is, after all, at the very heart and the very soul of my ever pointing out the extent to which dasein and conflicting goods are awash in contingency, chance and change.
Now, what exactly are your objections to the manner in which I construe dasein as it relates to the accumulation of value judgments “in the head” of any particular individual? How do you encompass your own value judgments here? How are they related to your philosophical precepts and your pantheistic religious framework?
What say you regarding the morality of abortion? Or, again, pick another issue altogether.
I understand that you cannot imagine how some other process might resolve an issue, including moral ones, but isn’t that the case with any culturally embedded belief, that it seems inevitable and all others a waste of time or worse. I am focused on process. You want me to give you an answer and then prove it regarding specific content (and choose a worst case example, abortionists, as if a worst case example disproves the objectivists). If I do that it would affirm your choice around process and all the assumptions there.
When I do this you turn my post into an ad hom insult, that I am merely making some technical philosophical point rather than taking your own goals seriously.
Come on, my friend, we have both gone down the polemical path here on this thread. And on other threads. Don’t put the burden all on me.
In fact, I tend to engage polemics to the extent that it seems aimed at me. For example, in my exchange with Arcturus Descending here there is not a hint of polemics. The exchange is entirely civil.
As for “process”, I try to make it as clear as I possibly can that this interest me only to the extent that it is integrated “out in the world” of actual conflicting goods. If others wish to explore it instead only with fellow “serious philosophers” let them go right ahead.
Anyway, thanks for this:
But I do want to emphasize that this has been useful for me and while you likely don’t give a shit, however much I can find this process irritating at times, I like you and respect you and my frustration comes, likely because in the complicated mish mash of epistemologies and positions inside me (no one else seems to admit this since they are all monads) I have these patterns myself. I saw how some of the people over at KTS reacted to you. And they have no idea what you have lived and how stupid some of their assumptions about you are, I might add, the pussies, little armchair ubermenshen.
Over there, it’s all basically just entertainment. I think.
I won’t claim it is always in this spirit but it is a part of my motivation: you seem to be hitting your head against a wall and react to suggestions there might be a problem in your approach by saying there is no other possible way to reach your goal, even if you consider reaching your goal unlikely, so I feel the urge to say that this process and your sense of its inevitability is a dasein contruction and you don’t need to bang your head against a wall. And mulling on this has helped me bang my head on the same wall in the same way less.
Probably because I am running out of time in which to integrate whatever philosophy might have to contribute to my life as it relates to the manner in which [here and now] I do understand the profoundly existential relationship between dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
And if folks can’t or don’t or won’t bring their own understanding of it down to earth they can move on to the didactic abstractionists [Will Durants “epistemologists”] who are more than eager to explore all of this free of category errors.
“Up there”, as it were.