And Marxism, which derives from well meant intentions…
.
Ethics Without Morals by Joel Marks
Bill Meacham finds Ethics Without Morals easy enough to live with.
As philosophers, we need to get clear on our concepts. What is morality? Marks’ answer: morality is a set of absolute and universal imperatives and prohibitions – a set of rules which everyone is obliged to obey. This set of imperatives is supposed to apply to all human beings at all times and places. The moral rules trump all other rules, and manifest in our feelings as spontaneous intuitions or impulses to obey or enforce them. The essence of morality is its universal, unchanging, and absolute authority in matters of human behavior. Following Kant, Marks calls moral imperatives ‘categorical’, meaning that they apply unconditionally, and independently of how we feel about them. In brief, morality is a set of obligations that we are all supposed to obey. This is what we mean by the term ‘morality’, by and large, in common language. And morality in this sense does not actually exist, says Marks.
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.
Marks argues that there are several possible explanations for our belief in morality, and that the one that does not assume that morality exists makes a lot more sense than the others.
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.
The first possible explanation for belief in morality is that God legislates it and gave us a conscience so we would know right from wrong. The second is that morality is a built-in feature of the universe, much like gravity, and we have developed an intuition to perceive it. The third is that the belief in morality was a useful evolutionary adaptation that lingers on even though it is no longer helpful.
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.
The evolutionary explanation makes the best sense, according to Marks. Development of a sense of morals was evolutionarily adaptive for early humans because it enabled them to live cooperatively in groups.
We evolved to believe in morality because we have to live with others in order to survive, and moral rules regulate how we get along together. A shared sense of morals makes for group cohesion, and those who live in cohesive groups survive and reproduce better than those who don’t. As primatologist Frans de Waal has noted, human societies are support systems within which temporary weakness does not automatically spell death
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.
Marks is so eager to divest himself of anything that sounds like morality that he says there’s nothing we should do (because there are no moral ‘shoulds’), only what we want to do – a view of human nature that he calls ‘desirism’. All we ever do is what we want to do, he says. So the goal of his work is to convince us to desire amoralism.
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.
His chapter entitled ‘Might Amorality Be Preferable?’ includes an excellent rant against the defects of our typical sense of morality: morality makes us angry; it promotes hypocrisy; it encourages arrogance; it’s arbitrary, because there is no final justification for saying anything is right or wrong; it is imprudent, leading us to do things that have obviously bad consequences; it makes us intransigent, fueling endless strife; it is useless as a guide to life; and it leads philosophers to waste time on silly puzzles.
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.
By contrast, amorality is free of guilt, tolerant, interesting, explanatory and compassionate (when the blinders of blame are removed, we are free to consider others with an open heart), not to mention true. The upshot is that amorality is far more preferable. If you read only this chapter, you will have gained a lot.
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.
Marks is…making a meta-ethical claim – a claim about the status of ethics – which claim I like to explain in terms of the language used to express it. That is, throughout the history of philosophy there have been two competing domains of discourse regarding ethics and morals, the Right and the Good. The Right pertains to duty and obligation: it refers to an obligation to obey moral rules; laws that are taken to be applicable universally and independent of one’s own preferences. The Good pertains to benefits and harms: it refers to consequences of actions that may be good or bad for the agent or others.
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.
i never did understood the written philosophies of a forum however i do love reading and writing it to the utmost of my experiences
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 early French existentialists, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, were very much public figures. They involved themselves in political and social debates, applying their philosophical views to current issues and events. Given this practical approach to philosophy, it seems paradoxical that philosophers continue to be sceptical about the possibility of constructing an ethical theory based on existentialism. In this article, I want to explore two of the main reasons for this scepticism and suggest that there is a way around them.
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.
The first reason frequently given for doubting the possibility of an existentialist ethics is that existentialism is merely descriptive. The main thrust of existentialist philosophy has always been ontology – that is, existentialist philosophers have sought to describe and categorise the elements of the world as it appears to them.
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:
However, ontology, or describing the world as it is, is quite different from ethics, which asks how the world ought to be. To construct an existentialist ethics, it seems, one would have to bridge the seemingly insurmountable chasm between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, made famous in modern moral philosophy by David Hume. Most philosophers now accept that one cannot validly reach conclusions about what ought to be the case based solely on descriptions of how things are.
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.
The second reason for being sceptical about the viability of an existentialist ethics arises from the widespread perception of existentialism as a form of moral subjectivism. According to moral subjectivism, morality is simply a matter of individual preferences. There is no objective way of judging one person’s moral preferences to be better or worse than those of another.
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.
In this way, existentialism is often portrayed as promoting a view of morality where anything goes. This picture fits in well with popular perceptions of existentialist philosophers as trenchcoat-wearing nihilists solemnly proclaiming the death of God in cafés on the Parisian Left Bank. While hanging about in cafés in Paris is certainly an important part of the existentialist tradition, I would argue that the existentialist view of morality is more complex than this picture suggests.
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.
Sartre contends that valuing other people’s freedom is necessary to maintain ‘strict consistency’. Since I cannot avoid recognising that I am inherently free, any decision not to value freedom amounts to self-deception. However, this argument has been criticised on the basis that Sartre’s appeal to ‘strict consistency’ is unjustified. Sartre seems to assume there is moral value in behaving consistently with human reality, without offering any justification for this view. As such, he appears to be drawing an unwarranted inference from description to value.
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:
It is important to note that Sartre’s reasoning only involves an invalid inference from description to value if he is interpreted as trying to prove that freedom is valuable. In other words, the above objection understands Sartre as advancing an argument something like the following: freedom is a fundamental feature of human reality, therefore humans ought to value freedom.
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.
However, I think there is another way of reading Sartre’s argument in Existentialism and Humanism that does not involve such an invalid inference. Perhaps, rather than attempting to prove that freedom is valuable, he is arguing that the worth of freedom is self-evident; that is, if we carefully examine our ethical beliefs, we will find that we are already aware of freedom’s inherent value.
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.
…Sartre is pointing out that, since the value of freedom is self-evident to anyone who carefully considers the nature of ethical action, it would be inconsistent for us to act in a way that undermines freedom’s moral value. In other words, any attempt to deny freedom’s worth is unsustainable because it goes against moral values that anyone would recognise, upon reflection, to be correct.
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”.
At this stage, the reader will no doubt be asking why she or he should accept the assertion that the value of freedom is simply self-evident. She or he may even be thinking that this appeal to self-evidence is a bit of a philosophical cop-out. It is true that disputes about self-evident values have an unfortunate tendency to disintegrate into mere exchanges of claim and counter-claim, with each disputant baldly asserting the obviousness of the values upon which she or he relies. However, this is not the only way to conduct such arguments.
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.
Morality is herd psychology.
It is how individuals attempt to integrate within the group, i.e., collective.
This is something I like to come back to in regard to pedantic intellectuals of his ilk. Call it, say, the Ayn Rand Syndrome
It’s the manner in which he fails to recognize the extent to which he has come to tend his own flock of sheep. The sheer irony of it all!
Ayn Rand had hers, and, on a much, much smaller scale, σάτυρο’s has his over at KT. Only a considerably more truncated rendition of it now. Remember the days when σάτυρο and lyssa [invented by him or not] had a rather fierce following of many, many more clique/claquers.
Anyway, the irony here revolves around “the leader” pontificating about any and all human interactions such that if you don’t think exactly like he does about them you are being irrational. And, for them, this is tantamount to being immoral.
They are their own herd and they completely fail to recognize it!
Go ahead, become a part of the KT community and dare to challenge their own herd mentality/morality.
See how fast you’re dumped into the dungeon.
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.
Existentialism and Humanism contains a famous anecdote that is sometimes cited in support of an interpretation of existentialism as moral subjectivism. The story concerns a student who approached Sartre for help with a moral quandary. The student was faced with a choice between going to England to join the Free French Forces and staying in France to care for his aging mother. As each option held a different type of moral attraction for him, he asked Sartre for advice as to how he should resolve this practical dilemma.
After considering the student’s situation, Sartre responded with what must have seemed a very unhelpful suggestion: “You are free, so choose.”
First of course the inevitable assumption that human beings are in fact free to choose behaviors they know are going to be judged by others. And here I suggest that we make these judgments based not on what can be known about moral obligations here but on what we think we know about any particular set of circumstances in which the question of moral obligations might be raised.
Thus, to assert that “you are free, so choose”, in not taking that into account, is basically giving the student carte blanche. In other words, it would seem to matter less what he does and more that the choice is derived merely from the fact that he is fee to make it.
At first glance, Sartre’s response may seem to support an interpretation of his ethical theory as a form of subjectivism. However, Sartre’s recognition that, in this type of situation, no theory of morality could help the student decide how to act does not necessarily entail that there are no objective values. It may simply be that moral values are such that they do not always point to a single course of action.
In other words, in accepting that no “theory of morality” is around to advise him it then comes down to how extreme one wants to be in regard to what does advise him.
As extreme as my own assessment? This extreme:
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.
Subjectivism is one thing, a fractured and fragmented subjectivism another thing altogether.
You know, if I do say so myself.
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.
According to some philosophers, all moral values can be reduced to a small set of foundational principles – perhaps even a single, overarching principle, such as Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative or a utilitarian principle requiring the greatest possible proportion of benefit to harm. Other philosophers, such as John Finnis and Charles Taylor, recognise that not all moral values are part of the same overarching theory. In fact, we often find ourselves in situations where we are called upon to choose between several attractive courses of action, each of which appears to represent a different type of moral value. In these situations, as Sartre makes clear, there is nothing left to do except choose.
Or, as someone once noted [probably me], “the agony of choice in the face of uncertainty”. So, by all means, create one or another deontological scaffolding, worship one or another God, pledge allegiance to one or another ideological calling, render unto nature the final word, and subsume all that agony in the one true path.
As for different types of moral values, that’s what different types of rationalizations are for. No need for one size to fit all if you need a little wiggle room in some new situation.
This sort of approach to ethics enables us to explain how it might be that freedom is self-evidently valuable. On this view, choice is an essential component of moral deliberation. It is impossible to engage in genuine ethical reflection without recognising the central position of choice in moral experience. This goes some way to explaining why one cannot consider ethical questions without receiving practical reinforcement of the moral value of freedom.
Which brings us back to the assumption – and that is apparently all it can be as of now – that Sartre and the rest of us possess at least some capacity to choose freely. After that, it would seem to come down to the complex interacting of genes and memes intertwined in all of us out in any particular world at any particular time. Then the components of my own frame of mind in the world of conflicting goods derived from dasein and embedded historically in political economy.
Thus the part about “genuine ethical reflection” is no less problematic than the behaviors we choose as a result of what that comes to mean to us at any particular time and place.
So, when someone [like me] insists that we must be “practical” about this, we are immediately bombarded with all of social, political and economic variables that went into, go into and will go into our understanding of the world around us. I merely point out that any number of them may well be beyond both our understanding and our control.
Then what? Well, for me it’s a fractured and fragmented personality more or less impaled on “the agony of choice in the face of uncertainty”.
Though not for you? Okay, given a set of circumstances in which others might contend with your behaviors, how is it for you?
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.
Conclusion
Our awareness of the value of freedom arises from our practical experience of ethical choice. However, the core subject-matter of moral choice concerns our relationships with other inhabitants of our moral universe. In this sense, moral deliberation is invariably outward-directed; it is a response to a question issued to us from a source external to ourselves. Since the value of freedom is experienced most directly as an element of our interactions with other sentient beings, it is impossible to regard it as something of purely subjective importance.
In other words, imagine that you are a castaway on an island in which you are the only inhabitant. What of ethics then? Unless you believe in God, right and wrong comes to revolve solely around you and nature. If you survive another day then you have done the right things. If you don’t then, well, obviously.
It is only if another castaway arrives on the island, that ethics becomes “for all practical purposes” a part of your life. Suddenly your behaviors in your own little universe might be challenged by this newcomer. You do this, he thinks you should do something else instead. Then you become acquainted with the means employed to resolve such “conflicting goods”: might makes right, right makes might, moderation, negotiation and compromise.
The modern world of human interactions is just this basic reality writ large. It is merely reconfigured above into what for some will be construed as an obtuse intellectual contraption that certain philosophers like to employ. To sound like philosophers perhaps?
The idea of freedom has played an important role in many influential modern moral theories, including those of Kant and G.W.F. Hegel. Rarely, however, has it been argued that freedom’s importance means everything is permitted. Rather, freedom has been seen in terms of realising one’s moral potential.
The idea of freedom. Theoretically as it were. You say this about it, others say that. Then you both go after the meaning that is imparted to the words given the definitions that you may or may not be able to agree on.
And, sure, sometimes the intellectual contraptions come to revolve around the interpretation of freedom as construed by moral nihilists or sociopaths: Do what you want when you want and where you want to do it. Period. What’s in it for me?
But my point is that there does not appear to be either a theoretical or practical argument from ethicists able to rebut this. Given the assumption [mine] that we live in a No God world. No God and all is permitted.
Then back up into the clouds:
Sartre’s conception of human self-realisation centres on the need to recognise the capacity for meaningful choice in both ourselves and others. This picture of our moral potential is liberating, as it emphasises the need for each person to adopt her or his own set of moral priorities. However, our moral choices are not unrestricted. In the end, we must choose, but we cannot choose to deny freedom.
Well, there was once a time in his life when this “conception of human self-realization” revolved around resisting the Nazis in Vichy France. So, given your own moral and political prejudices was he doing the right thing or the wrong thing?
Period?
Thought I’d include my examination into the controversy surrounding the film Cuties: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 4&t=196000
This part in particular:
Now, for me, the tricky part revolves more around those who will tap me on the shoulder and say, “well, iambiguous, are you saying that this sort of behavior is rooted subjectively in dasein? That it is not objectively immoral?”
And, sure, a part of me rooted existentially in my own particular “I” rooted in my own particular life…the part that on a visceral level condemns the exploitation and abuse of children…reckons that maybe there is a philosophical argument that pins this down objectively once and for all. That maybe this is the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”.
But another part has to reckon with the fact that I can never really demonstrate that this is true. And then the arguments and the behaviors of the sexual sociopaths who honestly believe that in the absence of God all things – including this – are permitted. They only have to be rationalized in terms of what existentially they have come to construe as gratifying their own selfish wants and desires.
It is to avoid a disintegrating “self” here that, in my view, sustains most objectivists. If only on a subconscious level. On the other hand, what psychological factors might be sustaining my own narrative here? If only on a subconscious level.
Darwin On Moral Intelligence
Vincent di Norcia applies his mental powers to Darwin’s moral theory.
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers… from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have… evolved.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
“Moral concepts are embodied in and partially constitutive of forms of social life.” Alasdair MacIntyre, Short History of Ethics.
Darwin had an evolutionary view of ethics ‘from the side of natural history’ which connects with MacIntyre’s insight into morality’s connections with social life.
This is the part that takes us to the moral philosophy that some embed in naturalism:
In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces operate in the universe. Adherents of naturalism assert that natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural universe, that the changing universe at every stage is a product of these laws.
Now, in regard to the individual in the is/ought world, this can be derived from determinism such that morality is, like everything else, merely the consequence of natural laws unfolding only as they must. Thus producing only the psychological illusion in mere mortals of “resolving” conflicting goods when in fact even this is unfolding only as it every could have.
And then there are those like Satyr over at KT who assume the existence of free will and then, of their own alleged volition, argue that human ethics is far more in sync with biological imperatives than in MacIntyre’s “insight into morality’s connections with social life”.
The ghastly “memes” to Satyr.
Thus if you wish to understand rational human behaviors in terms of such things as race or gender or sexual orientation, you’ll agree to accept whatever Satyr and his ilk insist is “natural”. And it is from grasping nature as it really is that one reconfigures what is deemed rational into what is deemed moral.
And then around and around they go:
1] I am rational
2] I am rational because I have access to the objective truth
3] I have access to the objective truth because I grasp the one true nature of the objective world
4] I grasp the one true nature of the objective world because I am rational
This article will show how Darwin argued in The Descent of Man that the moral sense evolved from a combination of social instincts and well-developed mental powers. If this is so, moral philosophers will need to pay more attention to Darwin’s views, and in response, rethink morality along naturalistic lines. The result, I suggest, can be a rich concept of moral intelligence.
In other words, ever and always the part where biological imperatives meet the minds of the only species on earth able to reconfigure their behaviors in any number of conflicting moral and political directions given an endless evolution of historical and cultural and circumstantial contexts. Yes, the genes play a fundamental role in providing a scaffold that is applicable to all of us. But over and over and over again nature becomes entangled in those nurturing memes that have resulted in any number of diverse “rules of behaviors” in any number of communities.
Ah, but the author has already spilled the beans. Philosophers here are to “rethink morality along naturalistic lines”. But, apparently, only in order to enrich the concept of moral intelligence.
For the nihilist to place the standard for evaluating self, and other, outside himself- to make it independent from his subjectivity, is an intolerable, if not incomprehensible - motive.
He cannot endure being seen, as who and what he is, by another - like a dog can be known and understood by a primate, such as man, more than it can ever know and understand itself. But a canine has no self-coisnciuosnes to suffer from the prospect - it is why it defecates and fornicates shamelessly - a fact the nihilist secretly - often openly - emulates.
To return to a state of shameless is to return to a state of nil self-cosnciuosness - reversion/inversion of know thyself, is to un-know thyself; a return to an animal state…to become a manimal, and proud of it, entirely absorbed by the need/desire to gratify and satiate itself.Blah blah blah
Just for the sake argument, this being posted by Satyr 15 minutes ago at KT, let’s suppose he read my post above and this reflects his reaction to it.
My point of course is that when it comes to human interactions, we evaluate our selves through a profoundly complex and problematic entanglement of genes and memes. And only a fool, in my view, would argue that he and he alone knows how to untangle them definitively such that, given a set of circumstances in which behaviors come into conflict over value judgments, he is able to explain precisely where the genes end and the memes begins.
Of course this almost never becomes a factor for him. Why? Because he almost never brings his own intellectual contraptions down to earth. The messy entanglements embedded in individual daseins confronting conflicting goods in one or another rendition of political economy is simply avoided altogether by sustaining arguments contained wholly in a “world of words”. Like the one above.
The closest he’ll come to actual existential interactions is when he goes here:
“But a canine has no self-coisnciuosnes to suffer from the prospect - it is why it defecates and fornicates shamelessly - a fact the nihilist secretly - often openly - emulates.”
Okay, so what does this tell him about human beings shitting and fucking? The fact that, unlike dogs, we are considerably more self-conscious when we do shit and fuck. The dog’s behavior is entirely natural.
And what we “moderns” demand of people when they are shitting and fucking? How much of that is out of sync with nature?
For example, is it nature’s way that men dominate women? Is, say, rape merely a manifestation of nature? Are feminists who protest it vehemently bucking the natural world by attempting to foist their own memetic narratives on men. To make them soft and “effeminate”?
Perhaps he is reading this. And “over there” he will address the points I raise.
How are the nihilists different from others when it comes to shitting and fucking? And what constitutes a “natural morality” for him when he shits and fucks?
Again, assuming Satyr is reading my posts here [and the chimp video certainly seems to confirm it] here is what I noted for him above:
The closest he’ll come to actual existential interactions is when he goes here:
“But a canine has no self-coisnciuosnes to suffer from the prospect - it is why it defecates and fornicates shamelessly - a fact the nihilist secretly - often openly - emulates.”
Okay, so what does this tell him about human beings shitting and fucking? The fact that, unlike dogs, we are considerably more self-conscious when we do shit and fuck. The dog’s behavior is entirely natural.
And what we “moderns” demand of people when they are shitting and fucking? How much of that is out of sync with nature?
For example, is it nature’s way that men dominate women? Is, say, rape merely a manifestation of nature? Are feminists who protest it vehemently bucking the natural world by attempting to foist their own memetic narratives on men. To make them soft and “effeminate”?
And here is his latest exercise in pedantry:
Awareness of self goes through phases. It begins as error - mistaking ones own reflection for another - then confusion - unable to comprehend how this self-reflection is occurring - then anger - at what it perceives - and finally acceptance - recognition.
Only one known primate - homo sapient - can go a step further and take on the perspective of the mirror itself - indifferent.
I went through the various levels of cognition somewhere on this forum, from first-person, all the way to third-person twice removed…as the gradual movement towards higher stages of objectivity.
blah blah blah
Okay, let him connect the dots between this intellectual contraption, nihilism, gender relationships, and rape.
And, in particular, how he himself connects the dots existentially here between nature, rationality and value judgments. The part where genes necessarily trump memes.
Again, in regard to fucking, his point below is as close as he is willing and/or able to go in making a distinction between natural chimp behaviors and a far more complex intertwining of genes and memes embedded in human behaviors. Both over time historically and across the globe culturally. Not to mention all of the vast and varied experiences that any one particular individual might come to accumulate over the years in regard to his or her own sexual mores.
To wit:
Witness the implied moral rule in this behaviour.
Requiring subterfuge. When discovered causing a ruckus of disapproval.
What rule has been broken?
Do chimpanzees have commandments - a god, or do they invent their ethical codes?
No, of course not.
Now, note the sheer enormity of all the conflicting assessments of human sexuality that exist precisely as a result of the fact that the evolution of life on earth has produced a species fully capable of thinking up and then acting on all of the countless memetic permutations that have been passed down through the ages. And not just in regard to heterosexual relationships but homosexual relationships as well.
It is because the human species, unlike chimps, can and do invent conflicting Gods and religious denominations and conflicting philosophical moral contraptions and conflicting political ideologies and conflicting assessments of nature, that the relationship is far more complex within our own species than other here on planet Earth.
Right on cue, I post here and over at KT Satyr “responds”. In fact, I suspect that he responds more because he is hoping that I will copy and paste one of his intellectual contraptions here. That way his pedantic “message” actually goes beyond the confines of what is left of KT itself: him and only him.
So, in regard to my points here…
Again, in regard to fucking, his point…is as close as he is willing and/or able to go in making a distinction between natural chimp behaviors and a far more complex intertwining of genes and memes embedded in human behaviors. Both over time historically and across the globe culturally. Not to mention all of the vast and varied experiences that any one particular individual might come to accumulate over the years in regard to his or her own sexual mores.
Now, note the sheer enormity of all the conflicting assessments of human sexuality that exist precisely as a result of the fact that the evolution of life on earth has produced a species fully capable of thinking up and then acting on all of the countless memetic permutations that have been passed down through the ages. And not just in regard to heterosexual relationships but homosexual relationships as well.
It is because the human species, unlike chimps, can and do invent conflicting Gods and religious denominations and conflicting philosophical moral contraptions and conflicting political ideologies and conflicting assessments of nature, that the relationship is far more complex within our own species than others here on planet Earth.
…we get this:
Given everything that was stated we can conclude that nihilists refuse to clarify and to illuminate - to bring ideas ‘down to earth’ and build upward - Bottom<>Up reasoning - they prefer to maintain the ambiguities of ideological abstractions, where everything is vague, obscure, occult - Top<>Down emoting - a realm where anything goes, because there are no foundations.
In fact all words must be detached from their grounding in reality - in the world - from nature…therefore nurture must become independent form nature, as the sum of all past nurturing, and must remain novel, free, so as to provide a salvation myth to replace the ones being lost - decline of Abrahamism.blah blah blah
Culminating in this…
The source of nihilistic dogmas and ideologies = self-consciuosness refusing to be seen as it, secretly, sees itself.
Narcissism, and cynicism are symptoms - hyperbolic self-love, trying to hide self-loathing, or hyperbolic skepticism that refuses any perspective that insults, or reveals, or threatens the psychological well-being of the individual.
On the other hand, maybe there is an actual gene that compels some to ever remain up in the abstract clouds when discussing human interactions involving moral and political value judgments in conflict.
He has it, I don’t.
Or, if he is really lucky, both ends of this exchange are wholly compelled by nature.
Note to phoneutria:
Help him out.