re: your post here… ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … w#p2766084
about my post here… ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … w#p2766020
This post of mine explains how I deal with problems that for most would be framed in moral terms and I frame in practical terms and my preferences.
It was on topic in the thread and also a response to
I think people tend not to want to look at certain things, I try to make it hard for them to dismiss them. I think this gives a better chance for the world to be more as I would like it. If people are more willing to entertain the liklihood that power will be abused in ways most people’s intuitions decide only happens somewhere or somewhen else. There is tremendous moral judgment of anyone who thinks major evil acts are not being revealed by the mass of media. I think this group is sometimes right and that post explains a bit how I deal, practically with achieving my wants. It is one specific type of reaction to what behaviors related to political agendas.
It offers no miracle solution to that or conficting moral narratives. But it is an example, a concrete one, of how I deal with one situation, of how I deal with political agendas as distorted, I think, by psychological agendas.
You have also expressed that you cannot understand why I am not F & F like you. I think our differing approaches are related to my being less F & F. We both seem to think I am less F&F. Of course such things are very hard to tell over the internet and even in person. But my sense is that since you are looking for utterly compelling universal and objective moral arguments, this gives you extra burdens.
My point of course is embedded more in the manner in which your hatred here either is or is not what I construe to be an “existential contraption” rooted in this:
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.
Or, instead, using the tools of philosophy [or science] is it possible to determine if all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to feel hatred for it.
After all, given this Brave New World, any number of individuals might support it if for no other reason than that “for all practical purposes” they greatly benefit from it. Or they have managed to think themselves into actually believing in an ideological justification for it. Or they are sociopaths who go along with it on the surface because they are able to sustain a life that furthers their own selfish interests.
Same with the coronavirus/vaccination arguments. There are those who insist that their collection of facts attached to their own objectivist moral and political font precludes anyone not sharing their own conclusions from being rational and virtuous in turn. Whereas “I” see how both sides – many sides --can cherry pick particular sets of facts that allow them to reconfigure the debate such that it merely reinforces their own existential predispositions and political prejudices. Predispositions and prejudices that, in my view, are embedded subjectively/subjunctively in dasein.
“I” myself here am more “fractured and fragmented” than you are because I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy [in my signature threads] differently from how you do. Though I am certainly not suggesting that my assessment here is more reasonable than yours. At least not necessarily.
On the contrary, over and again I point out that, so far in the 21st Century, the “show me the money” nihilists who own and operate the global economy inflict at least as much if not far more human pain and suffering around the globe.
Again, over and over I note that my own assessment here is no less an existential contraption rooted in dasein. That in fact I am not able to demonstrate that what I argue seems reasonable to me here and now ought to be reasonable to others.
Bullshit. I have noted time and again that my actual options are limited insofar as being able to go out into the world and try new things. And I argue less that others are obligated to convince me that all rational people are obligated to try new things…and more that they try to convince me that they are able to demonstrate the worth of their own arguments here.
Okay, but given what context? And how is what someone likes not a manifestation of how I construe that as the embodiment of dasein? And “intuitions” in regard to what situation? How much closer are intuitions to objective morality than to the subjective parameters I ascribe to dasein?
The mass media is no less an existential contraption rooted historically, culturally and experientially out in a particular world given particular political prejudices. And, given the capitalist political economy, dollars and cents. And all I know for sure about the MSM is they take in an enormous amount of income each year from, among others, the pharmaceutical industry, the medical industrial complex, the big banks, the Wall Street community.
My best guess is that this is rooted in the sheer complexity of any particular human personality. All of variables that go into the making of my own psychological reaction to human interactions involving identity, value judgments, and political economy, as opposed to yours and others.
But here in a philosophy venue it seems reasonable to argue that given my own understanding of these components, not being fractured and fragmented just doesn’t make sense. It’s only a matter of how “broken” one feels with regard to any set of circumstances.
Also, I’m not looking for objective moral arguments so much as exploring the arguments of those who say that they exist. And, in turn, noting the consequences of those who insist that their own political agenda is rooted in them…and, subsequently, have acquired the power to force their own agenda on others.
Finally, as I note time and again, moral nihilism creates and then sustains an existential reality whereby one is not anchored to a rigid, dogmatic font – God or No God – requiring one to always do the right thing. Or else.
Nihilists always have considerably more options when choosing behaviors.
This seems unnecessarily complicating it. I’m a social mammal. If you had a wolf in a zoo for a while. Then put her out with her pack in the wild, then captured her to put her back in the zoo, she’d probably hate it. To call something like that an existential contraptoin - as a rule like you do - is up in the clouds if anything is.
I addressed this.
I’ve made it clear that I don’t think all people are obligated. This is one of the things that made people angry at you. It’s as if you get triggered and say things you say to anyone and then often on your own, as if it applies, which it does not, in the individual case. And as if we haven’t already addressed the issue.
Of course. Though I was not rejecting, remotely, all of current society. But of course. How could you possibly think I don’t know this? What could possibly have led you to believe I did know that people have this attitude.
Which is, of course, quite possible without objectivism. You can have people who have different conclusions and these are based on cherry picking, etc., and this is not caused by political positions or moral positions. This happens in many fields and contexts all the time. Of course morals and objectivists stances can come in and often do. But you seem to think rationality cannot be undermined if you are a nihilist. Guess again.
Nope. You haven’t demonstrated that in the least. You told me a bunch of stuff as if I needed to know it, then based on this, said we have a different view on those things.
And you have never demonstrated, for example, that you are not more F&F because of trauma, particular suffering you went through, perhaps not going to therapists or not finding the right ones, or for giving yourself extra burdens, like finding perfect arguments.
You have never demonstrated any of that. You just repeat a conclusion based on something dasein based.
Though I am certainly not suggesting that my assessment here is more reasonable than yours. At least not necessarily.
Yes, I’ve noticed that and commented on that dozens of times. But they are not like you. I know that.
I tried in good faith to answer your questions. I don’t have a conclusion about why you may be more F&F which you do not address. You do not address why you eliminate dasein based reasons you might have more F&F, as listed a bit here and in the other posts.
You repeat your conclusion as if somehow you had reasoned somewhere why it couldn’t be something as simple as some facet of my parenting led me to suffer this less than you.
Yes, you make a disclaimer that you might be wrong. But you never take the effort to actually address the dasein based possibilities. The contigent factors in our lives - both experiential and genetic - that might predispose someone to focus and suffer somethign more than another.
For whatever reasons, you simply cannot do this. Even though it fits your philosophy to a T.
And perhaps you could do it, find a good argument for what it cannot be these things, but you don’t even try. For yourself, you don’t even try.
Indeed, and to the extent that objectivists can “simplify” it by insisting the hatred that they feel here and now regarding this or that is in sync with the “real me” ready, willing and able to embody “the right thing to do”, takes so much of those “complications” away.
The hatred that wolves feel is almost entirely subsumed genetically in instinct. I would never ascribe their behavior to dasein. And to the extent that human hatred is explored contextually at intersection of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy, is the extent to which it becomes anything but up in the clouds.
So you keep telling me. But not in the manner in which I addressed it myself on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382
If I do say so myself.
Go back and review our own exchange on this thread. We construe “I” here in different ways.
For me, the focus on what all people are obligated to feel, comes after an exploration into why different people feel conflicting things about the same set of circumstances. Aside from the genetic components of “I”, how does this biological self come to embody particular behaviors in particular contexts given all of the variables [historical, cultural and experiential] embedded in human social, political and economic interactions. Are these memetic factors merely there to be subsumed in Satyr’s assessment of nature? Re, among other things, race and gender and sexual orientation. Culminating [at Know Thyself] in the Übermensch?
Come on, just because someone insists that they have “addressed” another’s issue here, doesn’t mean that it has been addressed to the other’s satisfaction. You do get that part, don’t you?
Because the perspectives of the realists, pragmatists, sociopaths and narcissists [however one might come to understand them] are no less embedded in dasein from my point of view. They can just shrug off morality in a No God world and be content to embody ethics from the perspective – philosophical perspective? – of “in the absence of God, all things are permitted”.
But, again, why do some come to think about the world this way while others do not? How is this not a powerful example of how dasein manifests itself from individual to individual?
Again, we would need to assess the facts provided by each side in the covid-19/vaccination debates. Which immediately puts us in touch with the gap between our facts, their facts and all of the facts there are that actually can be known. Then the part that Barrett explored re “rival goods”. Then two of my own components: dasein, political economy.
You don’t have to be a nihilist to note the manner in which rational assessments can cancel each other out.
So, I haven’t demonstrated it to you and that settles it. But you haven’t demonstrated to me how, given particular contexts, your view is different from mine. Instead, you only insist that you have.
Now, we can either try and try again given different sets of circumstances or just leave it at that.
What if something like that is not able to be demonstrated conclusively in the manner in which we demonstrate such things in the either/or world? Again, the existential/psychological variables are so complex here, we can only struggle to communicate to the best of our ability why we think, feel, say and do things one way rather than another.
“I” feel fractured and fragmented in my interactions with others in the is/ought world. And considerably less so in my interactions with others in the either/or world. I explore why in my signature threads. Others either are or not interested in reading them. If they are and do, they will react in a particular way.
Then all we can do here at ILP is to exchange assessments of these relationships given our reaction to particular situations.
Making An Effort To Understand
David Wong illustrates moral relativism with some telling examples.
Here though, accepting this assessment of objectivism, I make a distinction between two types of objectivist thinkers. The first get their thinking from and through others. They are indoctrinated as children to view morality in a particular way and they basically take this with them to the grave. Usually in conjunction with one or another religious dogma, or one or another political ideology.
The key factor being this: that they spend little or no time actually questioning what others have provided for them in the way of living a virtuous life. With religion, this often begins at early age. With ideology it can begin later in life. But, once having anchored “I” to the objectivist font, it’s almost never really questioned in depth.
Others though [for whatever personal reasons] do challenge what they are told by authority figures. They wonder if they can, in fact, “think it all through” and come up with a moral assessment “on their own”. You find these folks all the time in places like this. They concoct these truly elaborate “philosophies of life”. Intellectual contraptions bursting at the seams with all manner of deontological assumptions. Some rooted in God and religion, others in more secular components. But everything gets all tied together in their own rendition of the “Ontological/Teleological Analysis.”
Here however there is a further distinction that can be made. Some objectivists argue that not only is there a clear cut right and a clear cut wrong with regard to conflicting goods, but that right and wrong here are universally applicable to/in all contexts. Thus abortion is always immoral – historically, culturally, experientially.
Others however argue that while there is either the right or the wrong thing to do, it depends on a rational understanding of any particular set of circumstances. Thus here abortion may be objectively moral, while there it is not.
Which then becomes more improbable to demonstrate?
Making An Effort To Understand
David Wong illustrates moral relativism with some telling examples.
This revolves basically around William Barrett’s contention that moral and political conflicts often revolve around “rival goods”:
“For the choice in…human [moral conflicts] is almost never between a good and an evil, where both are plainly marked as such and the choice therefore made in all the certitude of reason; rather it is between rival goods, where one is bound to do some evil either way, and where the ultimate outcome and even—or most of all—our own motives are unclear to us. The terror of confronting oneself in such a situation is so great that most people panic and try to take cover under any universal rules that will apply, if only to save them from the task of choosing themselves.”
What I refer to as “conflicting goods”. Here though [from my frame of mind] both “good” and “evil” are rooted existentially in dasein…and not in anything approaching a Kantian deontological obligation.
Then the position taken by the sociopath: What’s in it for me? That becoming the only consideration.
The crucial assumption here being that both sides can raise points that the other side’s arguments can’t make go away. Thus those who support the right of private citizens to arm themselves argue there may be any number of contexts in which having a gun might save your life. While those opposed note there may be any number contexts in which, in the heat of passion, having a gun results in the unnecessary death of others.
Here there are endless sets of circumstance in which it would seem to be more reasonable to have or to not have a gun.
And what of those who own guns used for hunting. Same thing. The hunters have their arguments predicated on their assumptions and the animal rights folks have another set of arguments predicated on their own assumptions. So, what is the optimal argument that cancels out all of the objections?
In other words…
This, in my view, embodies what I call the “psychology of objectivism”. In other words, the objectivists may well actually be less concerned – subconsciously perhaps? – with the arguments they make and more emphatic that there is an argument that one can make to settle it. That it is their own argument which allows them to sustain what those like me construe to be the psychological illusion that there is indeed a “real me” able to be in sync with the right thing to do.
It’s more about the feeling of certainty itself than whatever it is one claims to feel certain about. It’s the certainty that provides the anchor for “I”. And it is this anchor that some then attach to God and religion to sustain this certainty on into the afterlife in turn.
Making An Effort To Understand
David Wong illustrates moral relativism with some telling examples.
Clearly, down through the ages morality has revolved around the crucial relationship between how the individual is perceived in relationship to others. To the family. To the community. To the larger state. And this in turn is often predicated on political economy. It’s not for nothing that throughout most of human history the emphasis was always placed on the social interactions revolving around a particular village. “We” was far more potent in establishing rules of behavior. The proper place for everyone and everyone in their proper place. Only with the advent of mercantilism and capitalism has that all shifted increasingly in the direction of “I”.
And, given the far more complex options available to the “modern world”/“postmodern world” individual in increasingly varied contexts, morality itself was bound to become all that more fractured. Especially given the extent to which God and religion become more splintered in turn.
Which of course makes it all the more unlikely that most in the West are able to truly grapple with and grasp what can be a very dissimilar foundation for human interactions in countries where the actual existential relationship between “I” and “we” are understood differently.
Also, imagine the changes that have unfolded in nations like China where this more traditional sense of social interaction reconfigures into truly dramatic political ramifications embedded in an increasingly capitalistic economy. What of “I” and “we” then? When the rules of behavior once predicated largely on “we”, become more and more in sync with a “show me the money” mentality more applicable to “I” in the West, right and wrong behaviors are no doubt twisted into some truly problematic frames of mind.
Making An Effort To Understand
David Wong illustrates moral relativism with some telling examples.
This is the part that, in particular, becomes difficult to convey to others unless the discussion revolves around an examination of conflicting behaviors derived from conflicting value judgments.
No doubt many who have embraced moral narratives up and down the political spectrum have invested considerable time and effort in “thinking through” an issue in order to come up with what they construe to be the most reasonable [and thus virtuous] frame of mind. A perspective they then use to pursue political policies reconfigured into laws. Laws, in other words, that, once enforced, get down to the nitty gritty of human interactions: actually rewarding and punishing people for the behaviors they choose. Thus precipitating consequences that never crop up in discussions like these. Some here may even acknowledge that those opposed to their own values are able to convey their own intelligent arguments.
The difference between them and me, however, is that, even when the exchange does focus in on particular contexts, I become entangled in this…
“If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values ‘I’ can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then ‘I’ begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.”
…in a way that they do not.
That’s the part I am rarely able to “get across” to others. They still seem convinced themselves there is in fact a “real me” embodied in their extant Self and that as a consequence they are able to align this Self with the argument that they believe encompasses “the right thing to do”.
Instead, my own frame of mind here is inclined more towards what Richard Rorty called “ironism”:
[b] "She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered;
"She realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts;
"Insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself. "[/b]
Only [of course] in exploring this intellectual contraption itself by taking it out into the world of actual conflicting goods in actual existential contexts only precipitates the same gap between words and worlds.
Then I’m back to more words still in my signature threads which in turn are rarely understood by others.
So, sure, I’ve got to conclude that this failure to communicate is derived from the fact that my arguments are just less reasonable than theirs. Instead, I cling stubbornly to the conviction – mere assumption? – that my arguments are rejected because the objectivists recognize what is at stake for them if “I” am in fact closer to whatever the truth may finally be.
Why Should I Care About Morality?
Arnold Zuboff keeps asking a dangerous question – whether anyone has any real reason to act morally. He thinks it has led him to a new basis for ethics.
Here we go again.
Another hypothetical examination of morality in a “thought experiment”.
A distant stranger? £10 [$12.50]? How about it being someone you love? How about it being £799,400 [$1,000,000]?
There are [out in the real world] countless numbers of actual different people whose lives might be traded for countless numbers of different sums.
And then there’s your own situation. How badly do you need money at the time the proposition is presented to you? What do you construe to be the source of morality given the behaviors you choose? Do you believe in God and Judgment Day? Are you a sociopathic nihilist? Is it ever and always about the money to you?
“Based purely on morality”? Is that even something that philosophers/ethicists can pin down with any degree of objectivity?
It’s like the “trolley problem”, but with no money involved. One set of lives traded for another set. But what is the precise set of circumstances. Who are these people? Do you know them? Does one outcome sit better with you even if it means a greater loss of life?
Instead, the “situation” is often confined solely to an intellectual contraption:
Presto! No punishment! Though, sure, there are actual “real life” circumstances in which someone might be confronted with a dilemma of this sort knowing that no matter what she chooses she will never be caught or punished.
Also, doesn’t this really come down to the intellectual contraption concocted by Kant: a categorical and imperative obligation to do the right thing?
It has nothing to do with rewards and punishments. Instead, it has everything to do with “reasoning” oneself to virtue.
But there’s a catch of course: that “transcending font”. A God, the God up there or out there somewhere able to finally judge Gyges. Take that away and what on earth is available to the Kantians or those among us here who might attempt to judge his choice.
Irrefutable Ethics
Richard Taylor on the intractable beliefs people hold about how we should behave.
How to explain this if not as a manifestation of the “psychology of objectivism”. And what could possibly encompass objectivsm more broadly than God and religion?
And “the people” still flock to it by the millions because what could possibly be more irrefutable than something that you merely have to believe is true in your head? This and the fact that in the face of catastrophe what else is there?
With God all bases are covered. It provides one with a moral narrative on this side of the grave along with the claim that in following it “religiously” you are certain to attain immortality and salvation – in paradise no less – for all the rest of eternity.
Is there really any other way – a better way – in which to explain its appeal?
That’s always been my own argument basically. No God, no omniscient/omnipotent foundation from which to differentiate right from wrong, good from bad behavior. After all, how else to explain the moral and political conflicts that have afflicted the human species now for thousands of years. If the Humanists weren’t able to to concoct objective “rules of behavior” after all that time, how confident can we be that they ever will. Instead, you have philosopnhical contraptions derived almost entirely from worlds of words, the truth of which being predicated on conflicting sets of assumptions and definitions. Either that or one or another political ideology. And look at the devastating consequences they have wrought down through the ages.
Of course this gets trickier in the modern world. Especially when religious denominations come into conflict. After all, which God exactly is this motivation derived from – the right one [ours] or the wrong one [theirs]? But given the likes of politicians like Donald Trump, there’s is little doubt that right and wrong itself can still be anchored to God by any particular officials of the government. All it takes here are flocks of sheep and election booths.
But, then, historically, look at the No God alternatives – Communism? Fascism? Or whatever North Korea is?
Ethics Without Morals by Joel Marks
Bill Meacham finds Ethics Without Morals easy enough to live with.
So, is this what morality means to you? Technically? Epistemologically? Does an assessment of this sort pin it down? Or is that just with respect to “common language”…the way in which many think about right and wrong behavior. In other words, without really thinking about it much at all.
Or maybe in terms of “common sense” this is the case. After all, if we can’t differentiate moral from immoral behavior universally, objectively, essentially, then it would seem to come down to different people concluding it means different things in different places and at different times.
Which is why I have come to conclude that the whole point of morality revolves more around a psychological agenda. It’s not who is behaving morally or immorally but that it has to be either one or the other.
Morality embodied by the objectivists in one or another subjective/subjunctive rendition of this:
[b]Here, in my view, is one particular rendition of what I construe to be the “psychology of objectivism”. Applicable to either Religion or to Reason.
1] For one reason or another [rooted largely in dasein], you are taught or come into contact with [through your upbringing, a friend, a book, an experience etc.] a worldview, a philosophy of life.
2] Over time, you become convinced that this perspective expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.
3] Eventually, for some, they begin to bump into others who feel the same way; they may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view the world in a particular way.
4] Some begin to share this philosophy with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet denizens; increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their life. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others…it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.
5] As yet more time passes, they start to feel increasingly compelled not only to share their Truth with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well.
6] For some, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes their own as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their intellectual integrity…on their very Self.
7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original philosophical quest for truth, for wisdom has become so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [professionally, socially, psychologically, emotionally] defending it has less and less to do with philosophy at all. And certainly less and less to do with “logic”.[/b]
Ethics Without Morals by Joel Marks
Bill Meacham finds Ethics Without Morals easy enough to live with.
I’ve never understood this frame of mind. Of course morality exists. It is simply a word that the human species has invented in order to encompass the fundamental human need for rules of behavior. With other species that revolves almost entirely around biological imperatives: genes, instincts, drives. With us comes the reality of memes. Social, political and economic constructs that flow from the objective fact that over the course of human evolution wants and needs come into conflict. In regard to both means and ends.
Some things we all want, must have. Other things are more subjective, elective, individual. But clearly conflicts break out over and over and over again in regard to who gets what, when and where. And how. The stuff that folks like Marx and Freud and Reich and Jung delved into. The stuff we encounter on the news day in and day out.
Here, you know me. I am considerably less interested in the particular font that any particular individual embraces/embodies, and more intrigued by how, given the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here, “I” comes to choose one rather than another. And then their capacity to demonstrate why the path that they have chosen is the one that all rational men and women are then obligated to choose in turn.
Given a particular context revolving around particular behaviors revolving around particular sets of conflicting goods. God or No God.
Yes, that makes the most sense to me too. Here and now. For reasons we do not fully understand going all the way back to what we do not fully understand about existence itself, “humanity” on planet Earth is part of the evolution of biological life. The “culmination” of it so far apparently. But unlike all other lifeforms, the theory and practice of “morality” exists for us. Based on the assumption that human autonomy exists in turn.
I merely suggest that there does not appear to be a philosophical assessment that allows us to grasp either the optimal human behaviors in any particular context or, deontologically, the only possible rational behaviors. And that the objectivists among us who claim otherwise – God or No God – are acting out what I construe to be the “psychology of objectivism”.
But I am no more able demonstrate this myself. Instead it reflects the culmination of all the variables in my life – nature/nurture – that, existentially, predispose me “here and now” to think like this.
I then extrapolate from this the assumption that it is true for you as well.
Ethics Without Morals by Joel Marks
Bill Meacham finds Ethics Without Morals easy enough to live with.
Sure, that’s one way to approach it in a No God/No Good world. But then we are likely to come face to face with those who choose to embody it by embracing a “might makes right” world. The brute facticity of power itself prevails and that’s that.
And, given those who now own and operate the global economy, isn’t that basically how it all does unfold. It’s not a question of the deep state existing but of acknowledging there are now three of them competing to divide up the world: the United States, Russia and China. Still, in America things tends to become more convoluted. Political economy prevails here but there is more opportunity for those on various sides of the social, political and economic divides to actually have at least some measure of input in sustaining one rather than another public policy. This is especially the case when you include most European nations as well in pursuing “moderation, negotiation and compromise” within their various communities.
So, Mr. Moral and Political Objectivist, defend yourself against these allegations. Aren’t each and every one of them applicable to any number of contexts most here are familiar with? And might the reason many are willing to put up with them be that the manner in which I construe the “psychology of objectivism” is the main focus anyway?
On the other hand, it all comes down to how, “for all practical purposes”, any particular individual construes the meaning of “amoral” given his or her own chosen behaviors. It will either be closer to “might makes right” or to “democracy and the rule of law”.
Then made applicable to an endless string of new and ever evolving contexts day in and day out.
Okay, but let’s put this to the test too. Choose to be an amoralist and go about the business of interacting with others week in and week out. How does being “free of guilt, tolerant, interesting, explanatory and compassionate” work for you when others still confront your behaviors with the behaviors that they choose as a moral objectivist?
Ethics Without Morals by Joel Marks
Bill Meacham finds Ethics Without Morals easy enough to live with.
Again, discussions of this sort can go on and on and on as long as the distinctions being made are encompassed only in “world of words” “intellectual contraptions”.
But what of making this distinction in regard to actual human interactions in which the “Right thing to do” precipitates consequences which may be perceived as Good by some and Bad by others?
In fact, if you can convince yourself that you are obligated to do the Right thing, that becomes a way in which to rationalize away any consequences perceived to be Bad. For you or for others. You did the Right thing. That’s all that matters. Of course for these deontological philosophers down through the ages, doing the Right thing was invariably intertwined with one or another transcending font: God.
You did the Right thing and it resulted in consequences that were anything but Good for yourself or others, but it was all squared with God. The Bad things would eventually dissolve into immortality and salvation.
Back again to religion in a nutshell.
But what of those who make a secular distinction being Right and Wrong? They can think themselves into believing they did the Right thing as a Communist or a Nazi or a Humanist, but when it results in Bad things for themselves and others, there is no immortality and salvation awaiting them on the other side.
In other words, here these distinctions would seem to become considerably more problematic.
Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.
First of all, the French existentialists formulated their moral and political philosophies at a historical juncture that included the French Resistance to Hitler and the Nazis, as well as a world in which the Soviet Union and Communism were still construed by many as ascending historically around the globe. Back then to speak of living “authentically” was on a different level of magnitude than the circumstances we face today.
On the other hand, the components of my own moral philosophy are argued [by me] to be ever and always present in every and all historical and cultural context. In all human communities. I merely assume a No God universe.
So, is the world of human interactions at the existential juncture of identity, value judgments and political power able to be grappled with and grasped objectively – ontologically? teleologically? I don’t believe so. And no one of late has managed to demonstrate to me that what they believe here, all reasonable men and women are in turn obligated to believe.
More to the point, it’s not just a matter of how the world around us is described, but how and why different individuals come to describe it in so many conflicted ways…and precisely when value judgments come into conflict. Facts about the world can be established, but not how, morally and politically, reality necessarily constrains our reaction to them.
This part:
Here of course my own interest revolves not around the conclusions philosophers come to in exchanges of “general description intellectual contraptions”, but how their “technical” conclusions are relevant in regard to sets of circumstances in which even advocates for philosophers like Kant can come to opposite moral convictions given any particular issue “in the news”.
Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.
Once again, we can attempt to pin down “technically” as “serious philosophers” the extent to which this is in fact what being a “moral subjectivist” encompasses. Defining both words with just enough precision to make them practically useless in regard to particular subjects as individuals discussing their own moral values as existentialists.
Me, I acknowledge right from the start that there may well be an objective, universal, essential morality. Be it derived from 1] God 2] being “at one” with the universe 3] one or another deontological assessment [re Kant] or 4] by way of attaching political economy itself [as Ayn Rand did] to a “metaphysical” embrace of capitalism.
Or as some insist 5] from nature itself.
My point, instead, is to take whatever moral narrative/political agenda that any particular individual subscribes to [philosophically, spiritually or otherwise] and explore/assess it in regard to a specific set of circumstances.
You call yourself an existentialist? Okay, what do you believe that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated – or most obligated – to pursue in the way of behaviors when confronted by others who share in the conviction that reason must prevail here, but come to conflicting conclusions regarding which behaviors actually are the most rational. And thus most virtuous.
However existentialism might be portrayed in this manner a more sophisticated understanding of it in my view revolves around the idea of “authenticity”. Living one’s life in a more or less “authentic” or “inauthentic” manner.
In other words, to the extent that you attempt to objectify either yourself or others, you are being inauthentic. Why? Because you are basing your behaviors less on the existential trajectory of your own life and more on the “received wisdom” of others. Hell becomes other people to the extent that they objectify you and see you only in relationship to their own authoritarian dictums.
Where I then part company from existentialists of this sort is in the manner in which I include that my own self – “I” – is “fractured and fragmented” to the point that making a distinction between behaving authentically or inauthentically is in turn just another “existential contraption” rooted in dasein.
Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.
Yes, valuing other people’s freedom in an intellectual cloud like this is easy enough. But what happens when what they wish to pursue freely collides with that which you wish to pursue freely instead. Joe wants to own and operate automatic weapons. Jim wants to live in a world where owning them is against the law. Bob loves his steaks. Jane insists that eating the flesh of animals is immoral. Tom wants his unborn baby to live. Mary wants to abort it.
And on and on in context after context where actual conflicting goods renders “maintaining strict consistency” anything but…possible? Thus deciding whether it is justified or not can be seen as, well, moot. In my view, embracing it as either one or the other is no less rooted in “I”.
In other words, neither Sartre nor others of his philosophical ilk ever really confront the arguments that I make about “I” coming to embody freedom as an existential fabrication derived from living a life in one particular way rather than another.
Instead, it is back up into the clouds:
Pick a set of circumstances involving conflicting goods. Then reconfigure this point into that which you believe the author is trying say about Sartre’s existential freedom. As that engenders an existentialist ethics.
Okay, assume that the “worth of freedom is self-evident”. So: Whose freedom to do what coming into conflict with someone else’s freedom to do something entirely the opposite? And even when the discussions encompass “serious philosophy” in an epistemological debate over [technically] that which actually can or cannot be known, or whether words should be defined this way instead of that, such exchanges can go on and on and on with neither side [any side] budging an inch. And even here assuming some measure of autonomy is involved.
Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.
The value of freedom is self-evident if you wish to argue that in a world where free will is assumed to exist, we can hold others to be morality responsible for anything they do as long as they were not forced to do it by events beyond their control. Instead, once again, things become problematic when those who believe that they are exercising their own free will embody “moral values” that deny you the possibility of acting out your own free will. Or precipitate consequences that result in pain and suffering for others.
Then all these highfalutin intellectual contraptions bent on pinning down the meaning of “moral values” philosophically, just go around and around in circles. The internal logic embedded in the assumption that the way you define the words “moral” and “values” reconfigured into the meaning of “moral values” together becomes just one more example of “definitional logic”.
No, at this stage this reader is wondering when “worlds of words” of this sort are actually going to be about something that triggers all manner of conflicting moral and political agendas. And, from my frame of mind, that which is deemed to be “self-evident” in regard to moral values is more a reflection of “I” derived from dasein than from any theoretical assessment of this kind.