moral philosophy in the lives that we live

I made a very simple challenge, a challenge that you feel threatened by because it bring you out of your troll hole!

Objective good is non zero sum, 100% consensual realities

Objective bad is non consensual zero sum realities

I define this reality as evil.

Then I go to further state that in an evil reality, anything that is more consensual and less zero sum is the good, and the opposite, the bad.

For example: abortion

The anti abortionists say there are two lives instead of one, and both must be protected.

Then there’s consent.

The mother is not consenting to a being that’s part of her body until the umbilical cord is cut, since it’s a part of her body still, it is her choice… once the child is no longer a part of her body, it is no longer her choice.

This certainly crushes the arguments of the anti-abortionists!!!

So, if they still insist that the unborn have a natural right to life outside the womb, they are clearly being irrational.

And this is necessarily true because the assumptions made by you above are wholly in sync with the very ontological and teleological foundations of existence itself.

Indeed, only the existence of God Himself can trump it.

As promised…

“From time to time I will bring this thread back to the top in case any new members might have an interest in this.”

This being an attempt to connect the dots between the moral and political values that you subscribe to here and now and the extent to which you attribute them more to either 1] the lessons that you’ve learned in exploring ethics philosophically or 2] a particular experiential trajectory such that, given the life you’ve lived, you were basically predisposed [for all practical purposes] to embody one set of values rather than another.

For example, think of Donald Trump’s children and the children of Barack Obama. Clearly, their own moral and political values were or are going to shaped and molded “at home”. On the other hand, imagine them acknowledging this and then wondering what specific knowledge can be garnered using the tools of philosophy. Knowledge accumulated allowing one to concoct a moral narrative and a political agenda most in sync with that which all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to embrace.

That’s what most intrigues me about value judgments. The parts embedded existentially in dasein more or less than the parts embedded essentially in one or another deontological/objectivist assessment.

Now, if you wish to explore this here with me, be prepared to bring your own value judgments “down to earth”. And not just embedded in “general descriptions” or in the abstract technical jargon of Will Durant’s “epistemologists”.

Please read the OP first in other words.

“From time to time I will bring it back to the top in case any new members might have an interest in this.”

OK. One broad category of behavioral activities I have come to value above others is the creative arts with an emphasis on that first word. Take that broadly, since I have engaged in photography, music, theater, various forms of written products and more. Let’s focus on music.

My parents were musicians, though nor professionally. So I grew up in an environment where music listening and playing was a regular part of my days. I heard them comment on music - including popular music - on their own efforts to play well, and on musical artists they liked and why. Interestingly neither of them was particularly focused on the creative side, themselves. That is neither composed or wrote songs. So where did my interest in writing songs come from?

In addition to dasein, I would like to add in built in temperment, though it gets very hard to say how this plays a role in music creation. I just want to say it is there. My parents commented that unlike them I took an interest in creating in ways they did not, despite the fact that their parents also included musicians. IOW I seem to have had a tendency to make my own art and in my own way, rather than say wanting to faithfully recreate the music composed by others.

This later got intensified by my group of friends, coming in from ages 8-12 and staying into my thirties, with some still friends from t his group. These were people who through humor, physical creativity, and then within traditional categories of art, were always exploring new ways to do these things. It was a very playful group of males adn their was some drive to do things in our own way, together and separately. Any tendencies I had in that direction got increased in their company.

I found some pleasure in being able to play the songs of someone I liked. But not much. I always saw it as an excerise in learning how to create myself. The concept of a cover band or the nailing a guitar solo I thought was great was of very little interest in an of itself. I loved the feeling of making something that did not exist before I made it. Of course I wanted it to be good.

Later I found out that one of my parents had wanted to be a composer, but had thought it would entail too much ruthlessness in relation to his family. Perhaps this was in the air at home. This denied urge. And I picked this up by osmosis.

I went to Montosorri school when quite little. While not particularly more focused on creativity, at least, I don’t remember it being so. It is a very physical pedagogy. The pedagogy itself is quite creative and multimedia and this may have given me more of a sense of possibility regarding doing things in generally. Creativity is founded on being open to possibilities. So perhaps this acted as a cultural quality that at least allowed it to be more likely I would focus on creativity.

Since my parents were talking about creative people - though also on technical artists like other musicians - I may also have thought that there is value in being that kind of person. One of my friend’s fathers was vastly more focused on creative people and was a clearly frustrated creator in a number of arts - he did want to make his living off art. He became a kind of extra father figure, though chicken and egg issues come up in determining if my built in interest drew me to him or he helped create my interest.

I had a short attention span for things I was not directly interested in. I probably would have gotten a diagnosis - ADD, ADHD - if it was nowadays. Creating I find interesting. Rote learning I do not. I often did assignments in school in ways the teachers did not intend and this was for me to make it interesting for myself. This started very early and was noted - both as a postive and negative by teachers. Usually negative. Where did this impatience come from? Well, I went through some serious traumas as a kid. This can make some people want more instant gratification and also to not being willing to suffer their way through details and be disciplined in certain ways, since they are already suffering. Or it could have been genetic - my mother had similar tendencies, though she also went through similar traumas as a child. But then it also could have been that I was normal. That we all find sitting in rows learning things out of context, keeping still, to be a kind of torture. The difference is I allowed my reaction to take more space. Perhaps due to parenting - I was an only child, one parent had hippyish tendencies - perhaps due to genetics. Maybe stubborness was built in to me.

To keep things interesting I was creative. Or tried to be. Once this made things more interesting then all boring situations were essential triggers for me to train creativity - as well as I could, given the general hatred for hte creative in the education system and elsewhere.

Anyway, that’s a bit of an attempt to satisfy the request of the OP. I can say more, but perhaps am not doing it correctly. I did not choose what it generally consider a moral value. Though I think it is one. Or since I do not grant morals some kind of objectivity, anything that leads to behavior is in the same category: values. Perhaps I should be doing something else. Perhaps other people should be. I value creative behavior more than other behavior. Not all behavior, but much of it. I prioritize it.

Yes, your own personal experiences with music were very, very different from my own.

The members of my own family [like the neighbors around us] were of two kind: top forty or country.

It was only in being drafted into the army and [fortuitously] bumping into soldiers who introduced me to additional genres that I was able to expand my horizons.

But: music isn’t really something that most associate with “conflicting goods”. Sure, there were folks like Ayn Rand who held in contempt those who did not listen to the music that she sanctioned. And I have a song on my music thread that explores the contempt that both the Nazis and the Communists had for jazz music. And we all know of those who have contempt for “pop music”. Those who refuse to consider anything other than “serious” music.

But my thread is more about connecting the dots between your own personal experiences and the value judgments – moral narratives, political prejudices – that we come to acquire. And the manner in which they come to collide with the values of others. And the manner in which those collisions precipitate all manner of human pain and suffering.

And while that can come to revolve around “creative behaviors” that go in different directions, it rarely reaches the level of contention that we see with respect to issues like abortion or gun control or animal rights.

FAir enough, and I realized it might not quite fit. But let me make a last statement on it. I think actually it does underlie and is connected with political and moral narratives and conflicting goods.

In fact to say these values here are moral values and these values over here are values but not moral ones is a kind of objectivism. Because it is deciding that this set of behaviors is good or bad and these others are neutral, don’t matter. Only an objectivist, can, in the end, say that these are behaviors and attitudes that have a moral dimension and those are behaviors that do not.

I think creativity is hated by some, both on the right and the left. The right often view creatitivity as threatening because it means change, but also because creative people are questioning things that should only be one way. This can involved political issues - and so liberals are seen as being creative where one should be traditional - or it can be even down to how one walks, what clothes one wears…how hippies or bohemians or jazz kids or hip hoppers would be viewed by conservative people, with more acceptance by some libertarian types. The left at least if you get far enough out there an the communist end (but not on the anarchist end) can see creativity as bourgeois and too individualistic and norms get created for art, that should have political we focus and often should be realistic. Creativity also runs counter to corporatism, which certainly wants to eat specific creative products and sell them, but the actual working environment stifles it, with highly restricted channels for what might lead to money.

So being a creative person is political, does lead to conflicts that are considered moral, if that creativity affects anything from communication to dress to behavior to interpersonal dynamics, which it tends to if it is a prioritized value. It’s like an ur-moral value. Of course creative people can be at odds, morally or valuely, with each other. It is not a specific moral position that can be labeled like religious right wing. On the other hand I think there are tendencies created by it. They are less likely to do well in extremes of the right and left right off the bat, since these are highly morallized societies with more clearly laid out right ways to be, and in all facets of life.

Creativity also wold lead to tendencies, I would guess, to see with skepticism at things like duty, career, restrictions on expression in general, conformism, and authority. I think that in general if creativity was prioritized, say in schooling and parenting, society would move in a certain political direction, one that would be seen as immoral by various groups and then moral by others.

It does not resolve conflicting goods, and nothing does, though in specific cases the conflicts can disappear. But it is a kind of ur-moral value.

I suppose I am raising the issue of whether the objectivists can draw a distinction between moral values and other values. Any value can and does lead to conflict.

But I’ve said my piece and since it seems to you tangential to your topic, I’ll leave it here.

My point is that a value judgment, relating either to moral and political issues or to personal likes and dislikes, is rooted by and large in dasein.

Or, rather, the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein “here and now”.

It’s just that with some particular propensities, there is very little in the way of conflicting goods. And one is able to pursue the things they like [like music] with litle or no fear that the political power of others will come into play.

Each individual context is entirely unique from different points of view.

Thus when you note…

…my reaction is that, yes, given the particular trajectories of particular lives some will find themselves predisposed toward the conservative/rightist narrative, others the liberal/leftist narrative.

They are both able to make points that the other side is not able to simply dismiss. It all comes down to the initial assumptions one makes about “the human condition”. But how is this not in turn embedded existentially in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts ever and always evolving of time given the persistence of contingency, chance and change.

My point is always that there does not appear to be a way, using the tools of philosophy, to pin down that which it is said that all truly rational human beings are obligated to think and feel about all of this.

Iambiguous,

I can just treat you like you treat everyone else and just post links like this:

viewtopic.php?p=2727444#p2727444

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194942

Those are my refutations of your thoughts on this matter

Philosophy is not mathematics in that it cannot be objectively demonstrated to the satisfaction of absolutely everyone
There are always going to be alternatives to any proposition so universal agreement is virtually impossible to guarantee

when you’re involved in a very serious and urgent political battle for the hearts and minds of the people, you gotta propagandize everything, including art. it’s especially because jazz music is relaxed, playfully experimental, quick and free spirited that it was condemned by these parties. these folks were too rigid to understand jazz and tried everything they could to demean it. even went so far as to say some silly shit like jazz has racially inferior origins. but that’s not how it works. the logic of music is already present and waiting to be realized by whoever happens to be in the right circumstances to discover it. had historical circumstances been different, the eskimos may have been the first people to recognize the language of jazz.

anyway jazz critics aren’t telling us anything other than: damn this music is difficult and i’m too much of a dummy to comprehend it, so it sucks. it’s a lack of loftiness of spirit and quickness of feet. the free flow of the improvisation requires greater speed and dexterity than perhaps any other genre of music, save some stuff from the classical period. jazz critics are simply dull. a different kind of listener who is unable to hear a more sophisticated language.

lounge jazz, on the other hand, is absolute bourgeois garbage …

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWIJIJRMoLk[/youtube]

p.s. I smoked a joint with ike - the guy singing - behind a club in Asheville over a decade ago.

I disagree.
Its just even harder than mathematics.

We cant both understand and reject the will to power theory
-rejecting it is an act of will to power.

It just… has like, zero moral value. Other than that it demonstrates what morality is.

Well, in regard to the either/or world – things that seem to in fact be true for all of us – the tools of philosophy hold their own with the tools of science.

Something is either noted logically and rationally regarding a thing that we can know or it’s not. And this can then be demonstrated one way or the other.

At least until we go down really deep and explore what actually does unfold regarding the interaction of human biology, human perceptions, human conceptions and human behaviors. How they all fit together…ontologically? Teleologically?

My aim on this thread is always to distinguish between [b][u]I[/b][/u] in the either/or world and “i’” in the is/ought world.

It is in the is/ought world that the components of my own moral philosophy – nihilism – kick in.

But: as no more than an existential contraption. Which I then presume is apllicable to others as well.

This one:

Robert Palmer, Lisa Dalbello
Rules Are Made To Be Broken
youtu.be/2u3ucVDdyyM

Context

The Jews were the first to encode ethics and connect them to an abstraction they called ‘god’, making the enforcement of these collective rules of conduct a personal matter of conscience.
They weaponized shame and guilt, they did not invent them, as many Degenerates want to believe.
This made neurosis inevitable - see Ecmandu.
Shame and guilt broke him.
Shattered him to pieces.

Law is made for the human individual, not the individual made for the law.

According to the Unified Theory of Ethics, the only obligation we have is to be good and to do good.
To be good one is to be so devoted to ethics as to develop a good positive moral character, with all that implies, and to form habits that put those character traits into practice.

Then, should an emergency arise, the good habits take over. And then one tends to do ‘the right thing.’

The rights we have are spelled out in The U.S. Constitution, in the United Nations Charter, and in Franklin Roosevelt’s “Second Bil of Rights.” {Study all three}!!
]Also we have a right to Autonomy and to Liberty, and to Social Justice …with all that implies. With each right goes a corresponding responsibility.

That is some of what the Unified Theory teaches: we are to deeply devote ourselves to Ethics/Morality, and to educate and sensitize our conscience to it. Then we won’t go wrong - or will be less likely to do so. (As to what is meant by that, see the References listed below, become familiar with their contents; thus know WHY you are ethical, as ell as knowing-how.

Insofar as our relationship to government, we are to be civic-minded, to stay as well-informed as possible, to be sure to exercise our franchise to vote; and to vote ONLY for those we can have some confidence in that they share our values - our moral principles and standards …or at least some of those standards. (Be sure to check out the thread by Yours Truly, which claims to spell out what is an accurate description of “a good government” at the Forum on Government, Politics, and Economics.)

Feedback? Comments? Views?

Love this :slight_smile: “Law is made for the human individual, not the individual made for the law.”

No issue with what follows.

Law is made for the human individual, not the individual made for the law.

According to the Unified Theory of Ethics, the only obligation we have is to be good and to do good.
To be good one is to be so devoted to ethics as to develop a good positive moral character, with all that implies, and to form habits that put those character traits into practice.

Then, should an emergency arise, the good habits take over. And then one tends to do ‘the right thing.’

The rights we have are spelled out in The U.S. Constitution, in the United Nations Charter, and in Franklin Roosevelt’s “Second Bil of Rights.” {Study all three}!!
]Also we have a right to Autonomy and to Liberty, and to Social Justice …with all that implies. With each right goes a corresponding responsibility.

That is some of what the Unified Theory teaches: we are to deeply devote ourselves to Ethics/Morality, and to educate and sensitize our conscience to it. Then we won’t go wrong - or will be less likely to do so. (As to what is meant by that, see the References listed below, become familiar with their contents; thus know WHY you are ethical, as ell as knowing-how.

Insofar as our relationship to government, we are to be civic-minded, to stay as well-informed as possible, to be sure to exercise our franchise to vote; and to vote ONLY for those we can have some confidence in that they share our values - our moral principles and standards …or at least some of those standards.

You may wonder: What is a good government?

When the science of Ethics is applied to political theory we arrive at this description of the concept “a good government”:

A good government is one which continuously improves the quality-of-life of its citizens, and facilitates the inhabitants in its jurisdiction to help one another; it especially encourages them to have a concern for the less-fortunate among us, and to give them a helping hand to rise up a rung, or a step up, on “the ladder of opportunity.”

In other words, we are to teach the less-fortunate your ‘success secrets.’ And a good government would help us to do that.

If we have a skill in an area that is useful to society then we are to give the less-fortunate tutoring ad training in that area if they show an interest in it, and are willing to apply themselves to it. And a good govt. would facilitate in some way our doing just that …maybe by compensating us for our time spent in the training. In this way we would relieve poverty.

The ultimate good govt. aim is to acquire a very-democratic, waste-free, and a scarcity-free social order. A social order that is not only efficient but also effective …one which cares about people, values them highly, and lifts them up. The use of referendum questions - ballot initiatives - to determine policy would be used much more widely than it is at present.

Feedback? Comments? Views?