Not at all what I deem to be a situation in which to explore the existential meaning of those words. How about something from the headlines?
Here are a few from today:
Republicans Cheer, Democrats Challenge Mueller’s Findings — politics
Trump’s misleading spin on the 2018 GDP growth rate — the economy
With its ties in Washington, Boeing has taken over more and more of the FAA’s job — crony capitalism
Rick Perry calls expanding nuclear energy “the real” Green New Deal — environmental issues
Why Congress isn’t expanding virtual health care — the role of government in our lives
Brits pretend they’re sick of Brexit. But truth is they’re obsessed — nationalism
Parkland student dies in ‘apparent suicide,’ police say — gun control
Powerball is up to $750 million — the fourth-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history — gambling
How might words like those above be used in discussions of these issues?
You pick the context. You pick the particular behaviors that might be chosen in a world where it is presumed that some measure of human autonomy does in fact exist.
It seems like here you are attributing the position of free will to me. That’s very weird. It often feels like you don’t know who you are responding to anymore.
Look, my point in regard to determinism is that sans human autonomy this very exchange could only have ever unfolded as it must. Thus all of the words that we use in it we are compelled to use.
Whether your frame of mind is more reasonable than mine would then seem to be moot. Both frames of minds are wholly [necessarily] in sync with the immutable laws of matter.
In a determined universe you were never going to not like or dislike flavor X. All so-called pragmatic concoctions here are necessarily in sync with the ubiquitous laws of matter.
You often explain things that you have no reason to explain to me, and as if they are relevent.
I am simply drawing a parallel between you liking or disliking flavor X ice cream and the points that you raise about me here. As I understand determinism, you are no less compelled to react as you must in either context.
Yet you seem to be criticizing me here as though I were in fact free to rethink all this through more clearly. To think like you do.
As though I do in fact have the autonomy necessary to change my mind. Which I may well have.
Then this part…
But in a universe in which the human brain/mind has [somehow] acquired the capacity to choose freely, your choice will be embedded existentially in dasein. And no one would seem able to insist that one ought tp prefer one flavor over another.
Right, and you wouldn’t need some concocted understanding of pragmatism to have a preferred flavor, just as I don’t need some concocted understanding of pragmatism to not be interested in determinism vs. free will. Get it?
Nope.
We live in a world where value judgments come into conflict. And I believe my own opinions about these issues [like yours] are derived existentially from the life that one lives. Call these beliefs concoctions, call them something else. Call the manner in which we react to them pragmatic, call it something else.
And even though I don’t know the extent to which human autonomy is a factor in all of this, what could possibly be more important to know?
We explore it here “intellectually” on this thread, others explore it experimently using functional magnetic resonance imaging technology.
The jury is still out.
Then the sarcasm you often resort to when in “retort” mode:
“Golly gosh, as if I haven’t show I understand this, other issue many times.”
You often seem to get flustered in responding to me. Why is that? What is it about me that perturbs you? I have my own suspicions of course but I’m curious about what you think is prompting this.
Where on earth you got the idea I was saying my various possible reactions were free of dasein’s effects or free of determinism, I have no idea.
I have never said that. Instead, what intrigues me far more is coming to understand how someone who [here and now] rejects objective morality, deals with actual moral and political conflicts in their life. In a way that allows them to feel less fractured and fragmented than “I” am. Given that they acknowledge [like me] that their own values are derived existentially from the lives they lived. And thus might have been very different. And, in turn, that there does not appear to be a way [philosophically] to determine how one ought to behave in any particular context.
All we can do here is to note examples of this from your life relating to issues like sport hunting and all the others above.
I am ever drawn and quartered in recognizing this. How are you less so?
If you don’t believe in an objective morality that all rational and virtuous people are [deontologically] obligated to embrace, then what is the alternative out in the real world? Out there the bottom line will always revolve around who has the power to enforce one set of behaviors over another.
You say all we have is a political leap.
Once I came to believe that my own value judgments are the embodiment of a particular life, no more or no less essentially reasonable than those who take an opposite point of view, I looked around me at a world in which political and economy power clearly propelled human interactions around the globe. It’s a political leap because in any number of contexts, I was excpected to take sides. But I don’t have access [as the objectivists do] to a “right makes might” frame of mind. Existentially, I have just felt more comfortable with idea of moderation, negotiation and compromise in the political arena. As opposed to the more blunt “might makes right” approach embraced by the dictators/authoritarians/thugs around the world.
Okay, you don’t call it a political leap. But the variables I point to are still there.
- “I” is constructed existentially in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts
- “I” is ever confronted with contingency, chance and change
- “I” is ever embedded in new experiences, new relationships, new information, knowledge, ideas
- “I” is unable to establish a moral and political foundation said to be the obligation of all rational men and women
- “I” is ever confronted with the nihilists who own and operate the global economy
I encompass “I” here on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
How then is it not applicable to you and to others? In a particular context where you choose one thing and not another.