Are you aware of the revolution in Moral Philosophy?

Look around you, Arminius. Is the world as ethical as you would like to see it be?

Are people clear in their values - or are they confused?
Is there not a perpetual state of war on this planet? Has humankind abused the planet (which is its habitat) and thus obtained for itself the expense in time, sweat, and treasure of more-frequent-than-usual severe floods, droughts, tsunamis hurricanes, forest fires, etc. Isn’t the polluting of the air and water self-defeating and counterproductive?

Do you see violent disputes taking place? Do you notice corruption? Do you experience people using words that hurt rather than heal?

Could we use our time, effort, and money better if we cooperated harmoniously, closed our perceptual gaps, settled our quarrels in an effective manner, built rather than burned?

Would you like to see constructive solutions rather than destructive behavior?

If your reply is Yes to any of this, then I think you can answer the question in the quote above for yourself.

Arminius, my friend

You guessed right about where I stand on the issue you raised.

When Ethics is taught more efficiently the theoretical good will become the actual good …the living good :exclamation:

See also my response to turtle HERE; viewtopic.php?f=1&t=188316&p=2552268#p2552268

When you study with care my latest writings you will understand how those who take the course will likely be assigned by teachers of it to do some good deed of their own choosing; and then report to the class how it turned out – how the recipient felt and how s/he - the student - felt afterwards.

What did you think of the argument in that little booklet, ETHICS FOR THE 21at CENTURY - [See the first selection in the Reading List below]

I’m really curious to know… :question: :question:

Let us start at the beginning of the paper…

1. Harmonious cooperation
2. Social justice
3. A quality life for the individuals living in it. A
quality life includes peace of mind for the
inhabitants of an ethical world.

What if difference is fundamental to the ‘better life’.

What if suffering is fundamental to the ‘better life’.
as in my first reply here;
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=188347

How may I cooperate with someone who wants a different thing to occur compared to my vision. Imagine one who wishes to build a round house and one who wishes to build a square house, but there is only enough land for one house. This is analogous to difference in the same world. To attain order harmony and cooperation, we all have to conform to universal standards, and eventually to a worldwide universal standard. It’s happening right now, and we are living in the application of similar philosophy. It says it is all accepting e.g. Of race, colour, culture, but in the end you have to all build square houses and be square people, all ‘roundhousers’ will be destroyed [as is happening].

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I do not accept that premiss
:exclamation:
[size=93] (Firstly, I thank you for opening the pamphlet. Did you finish it yet?) [/size] Let me tell you why I don’t accept that notion.

Outer space is very vast in this universe. Can we possibly build homes on our Moon?

While you are imagining, and asking us to do so with you, why not imagine that there are multiple universes? …

There is plenty of room on which to erect a house here on this spaceship on which we are all traveling. Buck Fuller designed, years ago, homes that could hang from trees and yet be quite stable and workable. There are vast regions on this Earth that are not being put to good use.

First we have to care.
Then we have to resolve to only support policies designed to enhance the quality of life for all.
And we need to get rid of our pessimism; it is a sickness ! This is explained on pp. 44-46 of LIVING THE GOOD LIFE. [size=85] {Click on the third link in the signature below if you want to see the argument.}[/size]

Instead of dwelling upon what can’t be done, we need to educate ourselves until we have an “I CAN” and and a 'CAN DO" attitude!!! We need to encourage creativity - and inclusivity.

You are correct, Amorphos, when you say: there will be suffering. It is human to mourn at the loss of a loved one - or to grieve whenever we have just lost something - say, a body part - or some project or activity that we loved. Suffering will occur. However, as Buddha is said to have counseled: Dwell not on what your have lost. Dwell instead on what you will gain."
[size=89]{I am well aware that, morally speaking, right after the death of a spouse it is too early to think about that.[/size]}

thinkdr

Firstly may i say that generally i agree with your sentiment but i just don’t think that’s how such principles are manifest or utilised. You have a mass of different things and are trying to swamp it with a singularity; harmony demands similarity.

Fine - if you can accept that some people will be different, and think differently. A single set of ethics is a doctrine and to the analogy i made, all square houses with no round houses. Harmony requires similarity and so it doesn’t matter how big the universe is [atm we just have the world], as the philosophy is the same regardless of scale. Then the point is that people have sharply contrasting values, and the difference is what causes the duality. Harmony has to remove the differences enough for it [harmony] to exist, and that means conformity.
We are told to be globalists, capitalists, to take any job [to suffer if you don’t], and are forced to ‘volunteer’ ~ everyone has to be part of the machine. Such is the globalist doctrine of the west, and it uses the same language as is here. All of this is rolled up under the disguise of moralism and ethics of the righteous ”Then we have to resolve to only support policies designed to enhance the quality of life for all”~ because who can argue with the fundamental principles! Well i will. This usually and currently means a war on extremism and in Israel equates as barriers between ‘non-extremists’ and ‘extremists’/difference.

All i am saying is that individuality necessarily requires duality, and that the eye viewing harmony sees this duality as the problem, and not that it itself is propagating and pushing that duality into further extremes. There is a difference between pushing and showing people the way. …even Buddhism has dharma ~ the way to act properly.

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I used that word to call attention to the topic. All social “revolutions” end up being evolutions.

What I am dong is philosophy, namely, showing distinctions, defining terms, suggesting analogies, highlighting contrasts, finding similarities, all with the aim of clarifying concepts. The word "revolution is ambiguous. Perhaps you are thinking of violence, such as occurred in the French Revolution and in the American Revolution. What I meant by the word is a shakeup in conventional thinking, a new package. Except for the definition of “value” and the new way of conceiving of intrinsic value, the ideas in my latest booklet are found in the traditions of moral philosophy, in the history of ideas. It is even the case what what the genius Robert S.Hartman spoke of as “Intrinsic Value” is very close to what Edmund Husserl called “Intentionality.” And it is no surprise when we learn that Hartman was a student in Husserl’s class.

There are no new ideas under the Sun. Yet there are new paradigms, new models.

What I offer, in Ethics for the 21st Century myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/ET … ENTURY.pdf is a frame–of-reference that you if you are a teacher could use as a text in your classrooms when you teach a course in Ethics.

I will upgrade it soon by adding value to it; I will add to it a Prologue and an Epilogue based upon what I wrote here in earlier posts in this thread when I was summing up some of thee points for which I argued in the booklet.

EVERYONE: What were your impressions when you read it? Did you approach it constructively - as would an ethical individual.
Can any readers suggest improvements.

Btw, I do recognize differences both in individuals and in cultures. I advocate variety … within a unity. I promote individuality. I don’t agree that harmony requires conformity ! [size=85]You will note that those who declare that to be a fact do not define their terms. They depend on vagueness and ambiguity; and as a result they may offer very weak arguments.[/size]

Are you claiming, then, that chaos, confusion, violence and destruction are preferable to harmony (in human relationships)? What, I am inquiring, is your alternative to good human interaction - to cooperation on shared goals? What do you propose instead to reduce hateful disputes, or the “playing the dozens” which often degenerates into heated ad hominem arguments and needless conflicts, and sometimes spousal abuse? There are so many dysfunctional families; and in the U.S. Congress once Sen. Dick Cheney told Sen. Leahy to “go F–k himself.” Today, we see nearly-total gridlock there. Are you saying that people just can’t get along?

Amorphos, my friend, do you have the impression from reading that Ethics FOR THE21st Century manuscript that I want to obliterate all differences?? I wasn’t aware that I had the power to do that even if I wanted to …and I DON’T. Do you believe that just because Angela Merkel speaks English well at Camp David that when she goes bak to Deutschland she won’t speak German any more? I personally speak five tongues with their native accents and inflections, and I enjoy doing it. Do you think that because I see the virtue in a common tongue, a lingua franca, I am out to get the inhabitants of China to cease speaking Chinese? C’mon, man !!

thinkdr

I am making a complaint, so i don’t need my own theory to disagree with another’s reasoning where i perceive it to be flawed. I already stated how are they manifest, but it to me is a simple as yin’yang, if your force pushes against it’s opposition, it will grow, but the opposition will get smaller but tougher, and more desparate. There is naturally a point of exasperation when any force attempts to overcome another.
The evidence for this is the world right now, where the capitalist western force is attempting to be all consuming, but all it is doing is driving all oppositions to extremes. I might add that western culture tends to use human rights and their percieved sense of self-goodness as their basis, they are right because they have the right underlying principles and they are used in the globalist agenda.

The point is that it doesn’t matter what the force is, it is just black or white on a yin/yang. Just because the west thinks it is right that doesn’t make their duality lesser, because once applied then it’s a force pushing in the world [manifesting it’s opposite].

Lol no i meant that some people will think in contradiction to those philosophies, or use them themselves to base their own arguments [extremist think they are good don’t they]. Others will simply be different.

That’s how it always works, the system [or the righteous/good] claims difference to be against harmony. Chaos is an extreme opposite, resultant of sudden and dramatic large-scale change to a given status quo. Freedom is greater when no one has an agenda good or bad, the metaphysical positions [black/white yin/yang] are interchangeable. Freedom is an acceptance and not an ideal or goal, because then it becomes a force.

No, no, i am a bit buddhist/janist/taoist/druid, and i see your point. We just have to remember that political and other forces in the world are reactive [how duality works], and that politicians will manipulate such wholesome basis like the lion does the lamb.

My alt-theory btw is individualism.
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So much inequality, apathy, human suffering, tyranny, indifference, slavery, penury, unfair servitude, control by financial debt, ego, lust, vanity, and selfish interests at every crossroad of civilization where still those in power must keep the pretend appearances of morality that simply isn’t there to begin with in order to retain social behavioral control over whole entire populations.

After all, authority, control, and the state couldn’t exist without these concepts. It becomes necessity to invent these social concepts even when they’re completely absent, nonexistent, or lacking.

So, the march of bullshit*t moral ideology, phililosophy, intellectuals, and dogma continues silencing critics or skeptics from all angles.

A world of deception, lies, deceit, bondage, damnable conspiracies, and social dependency pretending itself to be virtuous or noble where total freedom in maintaining itself is the enemy.

You silly moral intellectuals with your flights of idealistic fancy in describing the human species as a loving compassionate one.

And for you religionists of every stripe and caliber, where does your God dwell in all of this?

That is precisely why I was motivated to write the booklet. ttp://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/ETH … ENTURY.pdf
If you would read it, you would see what it is aiming to do, namely, enhance the lives of good individuals by helping them to become educated, and thus even better, and stronger.

Those with no brains won’t even pay attention to the edifying concepts; nature will take care of them. They may win the Darwin Award, however. They, in a sense, are slowly (or sometimes rapidly) committing suicide - if merely by accepting the conditions of the world today and not taking any action to fix things. Perhaps they merely cry about it - and wait for “somebody” to soothe them …just as a little babies do. They, and everyone else, need to learn about what helps people flourish. Then they need to fight (nonviolently) for policies being implemented that provide the conditions for the well-being of all mankind.

Is the author of this pamphlet is in power?? He didn’t know that he was. It’s nice to know. :wink:
Anyway, you discover from his writings that he wants to empower people from the bottom up. That is one of the principles proposed in Aspects of Ethics on its concluding page. ttp://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/ETH … ENTURY.pdf

As soon as people gather together in a new location one of the first things they attend to is establishing who is the authority: in effect they set up a government. This is necessary to regulate the mistakes of the ego that you talk about, LaughingMan, such as the tendency of immature minds to litter, pollute, hurt one another, and in general, mess up. and/or invert the Existential Logical Hierarchy of Value (the HOV) that the pamphlet tells about. When people do that, they suffer. …maybe just by living in a world which is as bad as you describe, with all the needless stress that goes with that.

You know I fully agree with you in re ideologies and dogmas. You couldn’t have missed that in the pamphlet. The question is: what constructively are we going to DO about it. I am working to do my part.

Humans can be loving and compassionate if they become educated to the notion of making others into winners. Every interaction can be a win/win. …if you make it so. …at least in your life. Each one who develops himself into a loving, compassionate person contributes towards the millions and billions who will eventually become so …perhaps by following the good examples. For those speak louder than words! So be an example of what you want humanity to be.

Take care… And take care of others.

Typical response I would expect from the average kid posting comments on Youtube.

So I get banned for four days because I use the word “retard”? Pathetic. Look at what the world’s come to. A philosophy board turns into the politically correct word-police.

And to think you kids figured out morality, when you bashed a simple video that explained all you needed to know about human behavoir. People hate what they can’t understand, especially kids on the internet these days.

Doesn’t seem like bottom up thinking to me.

Seems like the typical modern attitude of ignoring human nature, and belief in saving the world through words and programming.

Do you think that social scenarios, social structures, are merely the product of wrong words and teachings? That hierarchies have no basis on innate human nature, but the result of wrong teaching? No.

You aren’t going to save the world with an ethics pamphlet. You save the world by changing human nature through their DNA.

My “force” is what Gandhi called truth force and what some would speak of as moral force (the “power” of a moral living example; such livving conscious practitioners of Ethics believe in education do not think in terms of ‘enemies’ or ‘opposition.’ Jains would understand the nonviolent component although not all of them would lean toward the “speak truth to power” aspect of it… Anyhow, I am seeking to make a science out of Ethics; and science requires that every conclusion be tentative, be dated and indexed, be subject to revision should a better theory come along. Not everyone is ready for the Ethics paradigm, and it is only written for those who are. I only want to make good people even better …or in your mode of expression:“hand them the force.”

Those who use Human Rights as their basis, as does, in part, the Hartman/Katz theory of Ethics, as you say - and to quote you: “are right because they have the right underlying principles.” I believe in thinking globally and acting locally.

Be careful, for the “yiing/yang” point of view may be the very thing you object to, namely, a creed or ideology which hampers individuality.

A Buddhist/Taoist is not likely to subscribe to “individualism” which is not a “theory” but an ideology …or an “ism.”. Of much higher value - by a quantum leap - is Individuality. The “individualist” upon close examination usually holds mistaken ethical beliefs, i.e., commits an Ethical fallacy. S/he believes that s/he did it all herself, or himself and needs no support; and is not inclined to ‘make others winners’ as my system recommends we do.

Amorphos, may the Force be with you.

Trixie may be correct when she writes: " You save the world by changing human nature through their DNA" I allowed for that in my system when I said - in Chapter Six of the first selection in the signature below - that new technologies will bring Ethics about. Check it out !

Good. It’s about time.

I’d be interested to know if any of the students here are planning to go into teaching.

And do you intend to teach a course in Moral Philosophy or Ethics?

No.

O Great and Wise One

Have you read my pamphlet yet?

Yes I did. It was quite rubbish. I’ve read better prose in group therapy sessions with the elderly.

Just a bunch of weak rubbish and words with little literary substance or connection to reality. No mention of animal rights, and just simple, basic stuff. And telling people to obey the law? Seriously? Sounds like a penny for the nannystate. You complain about the wealthy being greedy, and blame it on them “not knowing their ethics.” Naive. In short, reading it was rather childish, offering little substance, weaksauce.

The environment is ever changing - internally and externally.

One’s nature is a product of these environments, therefore, also ever changing - At different rates and degrees among all living beings.

Human nature is not static. It isn’t mutually exclusive to new developments.

Therefore, human nature can not be held as a trump card against progression to any ideal state.

You get out what you put in.

Our world has been at complete war twice in the last century.

That’s some heavy shit.

How can we say, with that right behind us, that our nature today is an accurate reflection of how humans are always going to be? We can’t.

It’s like if you torture a kid, send them through hell, and then say however they turn out is completely normal and a fair measure of humanity.

We’re still an emerging species, constantly growing - evolving.

What’s really needed is a change in our values and a big dose of understanding / humility.

So people will respect life, in all it’s forms.

But before people can even think of helping their external environment, they must be healthy internally.

They need to be able to love and respect themselves, and from that, all others.

Before we try to change what we are, why don’t we try to understand it first?

You’re a human being, Trixie. You’re valuable. You’re worthy of love, respect and appreciation. Just as you are.

thinkdr

In that it’s desire in people is to make everything and everyone into some proposed divine order of balanced beings. That is true but such theories don’t usually talk about individuality as it’s goal, they ignore individuality and propose similarity/oneness. they don’t realise that the world has aggregate.

Individuality is dualistic ~ my whole point!

Any science should include duality and is nothing without it.

That’s how the system/state uses it, along with capitalism & conservatism. The problem lies in the ideal as you say of individual->ism<, as soon as you make it into an idea then surely we are not talking about individuality but the universal.
I propose that all individuals should have a fair basis to build from, and that requires e.g. no poverty, as it restricts the individual, no political classes, no racism etc, etc ~ all the things you want also.

Conservative individualists believe there is some will in the world which makes them have the potential of a true individual, and don’t recognise that all people must be given a similar ground to walk upon. They think they are better than others because god says so, or there is some mysterious force in the world which brings about circumstance and situation favourable to them. They don’t realise that there are no such basis, it’s just pure luck of the draw [it’s all situational].

NO! You don’t have the right to change peoples DNA, it is the result of us living and evolving on this planet. We are only like what the world is, and individuals + humanity must continue to grow naturally, there are no short cuts!

Why does everyone want short cuts?

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