For the objectivists however a “deeper understanding” ever and always revolves around seeing things the way they do. Or so it has always seemed to me.
Yes, there are any number of circumstantial contexts here resulting in any number of particular sets of consequences. My point is that there does not appear to be a way in which to establish from all points of view an optimal [or only] “good”.
Indeed, there are parents like Susan Smith who murdered her sons and rationalized it to her own satisfaction. My point then is that in a Godless universe we are not able to establish that this behavior is necessarily evil. Or, rather, here, construct an argument able to demonstrate that it is.
This is one possible trajectory. But there are any number of additional trajectories [with good or bad consequences for the people involved] that might have unfolded given different sets of variables. The permutations are all but infinite. But the objectivists insist that an argument can be devised [their own] that allows us to just “know” the difference between right and wrong, good and evil.
“In our head” in other words.
For any number of sociopaths, the part about gambling revolves less around whatever the consequences of their behaviors might be [deemed good or bad from conflicting points of view] and more around whether they will be caught if others deem the consequences worthy of him or her being punished.
If Bob is an atheist, convinced that the deaths of all mere mortals results in the obliteration of “I” for all eternity, why would he be concerned with his “bloodline”? Indeed, one suspects that this is an important reason why the Gods must be invented.
God becomes the omniscient and omnipotent font able to differentiate objectively between Good and Evil. And if your behaviors are deemed Evil by Him there is no question of not getting caught or of not being punished.
I meant “you” generically…any of us. For the narcissistic sociopath everything revolves around “what’s in it for me” “here and now”. Few of these folks will actually sit down and ponder in depth the “philosophical” implications of their behaviors. And I suggest in turn that for those who do make the effort to “think it all through”, there does not appear to be a basis for embracing objectivism. Only a frame of mind that they have been able to think themselves into believing “here and now” “in their head”.
Yet there are those who insist that either through genes [biological imperatives] or memes [social imperatives] we can get to the bottom of it once and for all. What they can’t acknowledge is the astounding complexities and ambiguities embedded in human behaviors that reflect a profoundly problematic conflucence of both sets of variables.
This part:
Of the objectivists, I ask for an argument able to reduce the conflicts – the conflicting goods – down to the so-called optimal frame of mind.
But your frame of mind [from my frame of mind] seems to revolve more around a particular subjective rendition of “might makes right”. You embrace behaviors that allow you to achieve a greater measure of success in “accessing material resources”. If you achieve this [whatever the means] then you prevail. End of story?
But then you bump into those who embody right makes might or democracy and the rule of law. “Rules of behaviors” must be established. Why your rules and not theirs?
One set of parents insists that their children stay away from drugs, premarital sex, homosexuality, eating animal flesh, guns, God and religion, socialism, the boob tube and on and on and on.
What constitues being a good or a bad parent here? When, for example, both families are in fact able to accumultate the resources they need to thrive?
Okay, choose one of the examples I noted above and we can discuss the distinction between “good” and “bad” behavior.
You note:
My point here would be that there are in turn conflicting assessments regarding the extent to which in any particular community of folks go about the business of accumulating resources. Here too one could only come up with “an estimation…of what would be ‘best’”
In the best of all possible worlds, sex would not result in unwanted pregnancies. But in the world that we actually live in it often does. And different folks in different sets of circumstances will have different vantage points from which to confront the consequences of it. Are some necessarily more rational than others?
My main point here is to note the manner in which I have come to understand the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy — as this becomes pertinent to any particular individual’s reaction to sex and pregnancy and abortion. That there does not appear to be [philosophically or otherwise] a way in which to differentiate good from bad behaviors. At least not necessarily.
Then this part:
Yes, it can be construed this way. But I suspect that many who employ it as a justication for what they do, are simply pointing out that others have no real capacity “for all practical purposes” to stop them from doing it. They care little for “morality” here. It all revolves around having or not having the power to impose their will on others.
If the rich and powerful – those “at the top” – sustain a political economy that favors their own accumulation of resourses, it is either because they simply can do so, or because they rationalize global capitalism – “the virtue of selfishness” – as a moral font; or they are willing to moderate their point of view and negotiate and compromise with those who do not share their own “convictions” here. One or another rendition of the welfare state for example.
Which combination of narratives/agendas here constitutes the “best”? And this in my view is embedded existentially in the components of my own argument.
But you can see why others might be appalled at kowtowing to the teacher’s will here, right? And basically in doing so you are “having your own actions dictated to by the teacher”; rather “than being the one shaping the world”. Your world.
But in demanding that you share his own values, opinions, political convictions etc., in your answers, isn’t the teacher basically doing this? If you don’t bend to his will you don’t get the grade you need to achieve success.
Some embraced the Nazis because they shared the Nazi narrative and agenda. And had the Nazis won the war their “access to material resources and physical abilities to influence the world in his or her favor” would have been all the more assured.
That’s what those who wished to shape their own destiny instead are forced to gamble on. To resist or not to resist the state here? Yet every particular individual is embedded in their unique set of circumstances, their own unique set of options.
And whether with respect to the Nazi rendition of destiny or their own, they are [from my frame of mind] no less embedded in the manner in which I construe the meaning of identity and conflicting goods.
My frame of mind revolves around the speculation that in a Godless world, any and all human behaviors can be rationalized as “good” or “bad”. Convictions here are [for me] just existential contraptions such that we are predisposed to embrace particular political prejudices in one or another historical, cultural and experiential context.
Me? That sends me tumbling over yet again into my dilemma above. What I do in venues like this is to seek out the narratives of those who do not tumble down into it.
But the negotiations have to revolve around a compromise that is predicated either on an acknowledgment that both powers can gain access to the resources that they need, or that in some manner one party really does deserve to prevail — but that here and now they are willing to take half a loaf.
In the end it still comes down to might makes right if the compromise collapses.
Here though I am more interested in exploring the extent to which your own frame of mind is in turn just one more existential contraption. That you think this way now but that new experiences, new relationships, new sources of information/knowledge etc., may well upend your current assumptions and you come to think about these relationships in a different way.
This is the part that, in my own opinion, the objectivists are most discomfitted regarding. What if the way I think about these things becomes the way that they do too? What if their own “I” begins “to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together with respect to choosing sides morally and politically”?
The policy revolves around this: My way or the highway. Or the dungeon. Or death.
It is merely assumed that for whatever reason particular folks see themselves as the masters to whom the sheep must obey.
Here the rulers are not interested in God or political ideology or deontological philosophical contraptions. They seek only to accummulate the best of everything for themselves. Why? Because they can. You can’t “reason” with them. You can only accummulate the necessary wherewithal to defeat them.
My point then becomes that this is not necessarily an irrational point of view.
That questions of “should we do this or that” revolve only around the most efficient means to achieve our ends.
Still, how is this frame of mind not but just one more existential contraption rooted in dasein?
This part:
Here I would only suggest that the part about “deserving” is just one more subjective/subjunctive leap of faith. You may have thought yourself into thinking that a deserved end is beside the point, but how is that not just one one instance of a frame of mind rooted existentially in the particular life [and experiences] that you had; rather than in a frame of mind that can be defended as necessarily more rational than any other. As a conviction that all reasonable/rational men and women are obligated to share.
In other words…
Still, my point here is always this: that when we take this sort of “abstract” speculation out into the world of actual conflicting goods, we become hopelssly entangled in turn in conflicting sets of assumptions.
Which “for all practical purposes” become embedded in conflicting political prejudices. With respect to both means and ends.
Which always brings me back to this:
From my frame of mind there are basically two ways in which to think about this. Good is either understood as “good for me here and now” or “good for any reasonable man or woman”.
In the first context, Jane’s wants the baby. She would like Joe to raise it with her but her primary concern is with her own wants and needs.
In the second context, she is convinced that any reasonable man or woman would see that raising the baby as a good thing. Joe is just not able to grasp that yet.
What then would you say to Jane and Joe if they came to you with their conflicted goods? How would your own position on the good be conveyed to them?
How would your calculations regarding the “merits” of their respective subjective assessments not just be but one more subjective assessment in turn?
Yes, but the point I keep coming back to here is this: They insist on seeing it that way. A behavior that you have chosen is challenged by another. You wish to go beyond “is/ought” but they refuse to. They insist that you ought not to behave that way because it is “immoral”. They may even pass laws to punish you for behaving that way. And their frame of mind is thought to be logically consistent with whatever particular set of assumptions they start out with to “prove” their point.
This is the part I am still rather fuzzy regarding. You may well be making an important distinction here that I just keep missing.
But…
Jim thinks that stringent gun control laws is a good thing. Jack thinks that stringent gun control laws is a bad thing. They make arguments similiar to these:
Now, both sets of arguments are reasonable given an initial set of assumptions. And neither side is able to make the arguments and the assumptions of the other side just go away.
How then is this…
“…the formulation I am making is meant to be good for everybody on its own grounds (that is, that is good for every individual themselves to obtain resources, abilities and the rest)…”
…apllicable here?
If Jim believes that accumulating material resources in any particular community revolves around him being fully armed and Jack believes this “good” is best accomplished in a community where private ownership of handguns is prohibited, how would we differentiate winners and losers here?
Are citizens in America more the winners while citizens in countries like France and England more the losers? Or is it the other way around?
How, using your own formulation of the “good” and “merit”, would you address this?
I’m not sure if you care, but I think that in this response there is a mix of what I was calling progress and what I would consider regression. I will point out where I think so in the posts because it is relevant of how I can respond to them in such a way which clarify and puts forward my position. Another way of thinking of how I am using the word progress is that I cannot or will not reason a position which is not my own.
This is not what I intended when I said so. Even when I say that you would understand my position, it does not necessarily mean you would agree with it, but being able to respond to my position, or at least see it, for what it is rather than something else. But I also meant that in explaining or contemplating your responses that I could get a deeper understanding of what I am saying as well.
… … … … … … … … …
If there is one thing I wish to hear your response on and discuss it is this:
But just because someone else says something is so does not mean that it is. Why should you take that assertion seriously, just because someone says it is so, without having examined whether it is in fact the case?
In regard to the first part, I have put forward a view of the good. We can examine other views of what is taken as good and see if they are consistent and even in being consistent conflict with my own entirely. Besides that, I don’t think we have come yet to a point of refuting my position on its own grounds.
In regard to the second part, I have not defended a position that Susan Smith’s behaviour is necessarily evil.
Rather than saying that there are “good and bad” things, I think in order for our discussion to really get somewhere we would have to say what they were and examine them.
Also, you then speak about objectivists and bring up the terms “right and wrong, good and evil” none of which are part of the position I have been reasoning. These things and above about Susan necessary evil are part of what I alluded to as the regression of the discussion because they seem to want me to argue positions which aren’t my own and I either cannot or will not.
I am not sure why you bring up these sociopaths here. I did not say that my position was that sociopaths were good, so why is that relevant?
I do, though, think that the consequences of being caught and punished for an action is a significant factor when determining the consequences of making it.
Here, I am not quite sure why you decided to go on the way you did about gods and the rest.
I was proposing in what is quoted above the scenario you are saying, that Bob is an atheist and is not concerned that his (or any/all) bloodlines would be removed from living existence in the future. My response was that insofar as Bob and his bloodlines do not exist in living consciousness, there is no real matter of good and bad. Therefore, I am looking at the notions of good and bad from the perspective of the living. By saying good and bad, I am not saying good and evil, and I have no brought God or gods into this.
I am not sure what the point you are trying to make is. I have given you my position and we are discussing it. If you think that I should see some reason not to embrace my position, you may propose it to me and I will do my best to think through it. I do not see that saying that there are people who think differently is a convincing argument against my position. By the same token we could say that there are people who think any number of crazy things but that wouldn’t necessarily mean we should adopt them or doubt our own perspective.
If you are not asking why “should” my rules and not theirs be the ones that are adopted, but something like why do they, it would be because one of us has the might to put them forward so that I must merely adopt them, make some effort to change them (which either may or may not be successful) or lash out, or some other such attempt within my power. Isn’t that the case for all of us?
First I would say that considering them a good or bad parent in moral terms is not what I am doing here, so insofar as that is what you are asking, you are asking me to try to defend something which isn’t my position. Secondly, I have not said that the goal is merely to accumulate what one needs to survive but to obtain resources (including abilities) to reach a position of superiority and ability to influence the world.
When examining these scenarios from the point of view of the latter, the best we can do is make estimations on how various things will affect our ability to achieve that state. (I have told you before about how the best we can do is make hypotheses about what will happen in the future, unless one is omniscent and not mortal.) So for the case of drugs, would doing drugs influence those things (ability to obtain resources and abilities, etc.)? Would premarital sex, which might result in unwanted pregnancies, influence those things?
Would homosexuality (here I will put forward the idea of the continuing bloodline, and again say insofar as the bloodline stops questions of good or bad are no longer at issue) — a parent who wants to continue that bloodline might be against it for that reason, but remember I am not making statements of “right or wrong”.
and so on with the rest.
Okay, you will have to work with me though for this examination because we surely don’t want me merely examining it from my own view of good or bad, but to examine whether there are other self-consistent goods which may or may not conflict with my own. Right?
We can discuss God and religion. If you would prefer we can discussion socialism, if you have no preference we can discuss God and religion.
So how will we go about determining positions, different than my own, about why God and religion are good? I suppose we could consult others who think they are good for different reason(s) (to mine), or try to propose ones ourselves? Do you have any suggestions?
Yes, people go about accumulating resources in different ways. In regard to orienting ourselves to an unknown future, we can only estimate or hypothesize how things will work out, is that what you mean by the bit at the end about estimating? Or do you mean estimating on what is good in general (on whether accumulating resources, abilities and the rest) are good?
If you mean the former, I would agree. We hypothesize about the effects of our actions and find out their result once we have made them.
Here you are asking me about people being rational, but you must know I do not think that people are rational. Are you asking me if some ways of dealing with the consequences of pregnancies are better than others? Well you know the reason I would think some ways are better (because it would be beneficial to the fitness of those parties being considered, parents and children…).
We would have to examine other positions on the good on their own merits.
Well I have made an attempt to differentiate good or bad. I do not see as yet how my position has been shown to be other than what I have said, nor have we discussed a particular position which conflicts with my own and which is self-consistently good and so holds the right to at least dethrone my own from consideration of being good.
Those who employ such a justification may very well be doing it for that reason, and others may, for practical purposes, have no capacity to stop them. Those with power may care little for morality… Nonetheless this whole business of their justification still seems to me to be mainly a rationalization. If they can impose their view, why bother being “right” about it or not? To me it seems more of a matter of they impose it and such are the facts. I am not sure where we could get with this. Perhaps if someone wished to discuss why their imposition is right we might be able to examine it more deeply.
Even if those at the top rationalized what they call the virtues of capitalism, wouldn’t their obtaining the most successful position in that system still be because they were able to (as you put it, they simply can do so). Even if by rationalizing those virtues and preaching them to others, the general population went along with the capitalist system and thus enabled the conditions which made those people succeed, wouldn’t that rationalizing and preaching be part of their ability to maintain the system and their position?
I would put forward the possibility that the welfare state and moderating capitalism results because others with amounts of concrete power (ability) are able to put forward their position which enables them to obtain a little more than they otherwise would, and those at the top think it worth sacrificing some part of what they might otherwise obtain to appease the populace so that they can maintain their position in security. Another reason would be because in the system of capitalism you also want those who are healthy or able enough to do the work and other tasks, and so some certain amount of maintaining the populace is needed for that reason.
The best for whom?
I did agree and stated in what is quoted above that having one’s actions dictated by others is worse. It is better to have the ability to shape your world, that has been my position from the beginning.
But getting the higher grade, in this scenario, increases fitness (the ability to use that grade to access other avenues of power and ability in a social system). The actual fact of needing to express views that are not one’s own indicates a lack of ability, but does not necessarily decrease one’s ability. On the contrary it can be an avenue to increase.
They may very well have shared the Nazi agenda, and have been given access to resources and ability, but the point I am making in regards to the Nazis and the position of good I am defending is that the National Socialist system was a dictatorship and so by becoming an adherent to it one is necessarily accepting a position higher than oneself which remains fixed in place (the führer) and in doing so limits their own ability to rise within that system and shape the world.
My position would be that insofar as they are not able to resist the state and so are put in that subordinate position it would be bad for them, even if they would achieve a relative good such as the security and resources provided from living in the state. The reason is because my position of the good is one that is geared towards growth and not stagnation.
I would say rather that the negotiations would be made on the basis of thinking that the negative effects of the conflict would outstrip those of the compromise they are willing to make.
Well if that is what you are concerned with, you can try to figure it out however you see fit. As I see it, I am attempting to examine positions and determine their merits.
I think that question is more for you, because it seems to me that the reason people would adopt or accept that position you described is because it reflects the situation of living in the world.
Again the bolded part I think is more of a question for you. As I said I do not think that humans are rational nor are they obligated by some form of higher truth. In regard to whether the deserving is merely a rationalization (as I say) or something that is actually the case remains to be proven. Perhaps someone would have to explicate what it means to deserve and then demonstate how that aligns with the state of affairs brought about by the ability to acheive a given thing.
I am wondering why you didn’t answer the questions I proposed? Did you think they were irrelevant to the discussion? If so, why? The reason I think that it is significant is because we are moving a step away from examining the positions of good you brought forward from Jane and Joe.
I think there is a slightly different way of understanding good, but it is connected to the first you described. There is good for me here and now as well as continuing in the future.
In the first context she wants to raise the baby with Joe. Does she want to raise it with Joe regardless of whether Joe wants to raise the baby with her? Her concern is primarily with her own wants and needs, does raising the baby satisfy her wants and needs? How? And does it satisfy them even if she raises them without the (at least emotional) support of the father?
In the second context, why does she think that any reasonable man or woman would see the raising of the baby as a good thing?
I would do one of two things or both. I would either examine their respective positions through questions as I am trying to do with you above, or else I would tell them my position on good and bad and let them decide.
Whether my position is merely just one subjective position among many would depend on whether another view of the good is self-consistently good, and we haven’t proposed and examined such a view yet. I haven’t encountered such a view yet. There seems not immediate reason to think that it is so yet. One might be open to the possibility, which is why I am ready to examine other positions.
But just because someone else says something is so does not mean that it is. One could say that it is good for you to chop off your toes, but why should you take that assertion seriously, just because they say so?
If they pass laws which dictate a certain behaviour or lack of behaviour it has bearing on what one does, but it doesn’t necessarily prove that a law is good because it is passed.
Whether other points of view are consistent remains to be seen. We would have to examine them and find out first.
One would have to examine each of the arguments. The first one is regarding the constitution of the United States. It is basically an argument based on authority, the constitution says this and the constitution says that. They both assume that whatever the constitution says dictates what is good, which is not proven in itself regardless of which argument is accepted or is in line with the constitution of the United States.
The second arguments refer to preventing deaths, either guns do or they don’t cause more deaths. Firstly, they are based on facts. The facts might be unknown to those presenting their arguments or hearing their arguments, but either one is right (as supported by the facts) or else guns have no impact on crime whether they are present or absent.
If guns have an impact on crime, who does that affect (who is it good or bad for)? The badness would be for the people who experience crime, insofar as it removes their lives or else their ability (perhaps paralyzes them or affects their health or property, etc.) and so it would be on behalf of those who are the victims of crime that they would wish to defend the position that crime is bad. And the badness of it is related to my position.
The third arguments refers to self-defense and safety which, like the second argument, has a bearing on what I put forward as my position of the good (insofar as people would be injured or killed or have their property damaged and so consider those things bad.)
On the pro side of argument four, it is again a matter of safety which is directly related to my notion of the good. On the con side it refers to the right to own guns for hunting and sport. It again makes an appeal to the authority of “rights” granted by law, which say nothing as yet of whether those laws are in themselves good or not. If one wished to examine whether hunting or sport is good for those who do it one could either examine different arguments as to why they are good, or else examine them under my criteria and ask do they give access to resources and abilities and the rest, etc.
Argument five on the pro side says that guns are rarely used in self-defense. This is trying to disprove one of the con arguments. It could be either true or false factually (either it is used in self defense often or it is used rarely). Even if it is used rarely for self defense, that does not mean it cannot be used at all for self defense and so those who wish to possess guns for self defense on those grounds might still desire them for that reason.
On the con side, they say criminals will obtain guns regardless of control laws. Even if this were true it says nothing in itself as to whether possessing a gun is good or bad in itself.
I could go on with all these arguments, if you wish me to discuss gun control or what I have said about these arguments we can. If that is the case, we might want to discuss gun control rather than God and religion (or socialism) simply because of all the time it will take…
You said “If Jim believes accumulating material resources revolves around him being fully armed…” Firstly, it is not a matter of what Jim believes, it is a matter of whether it is so or not. Can it be proven or at least assumed with some reasoning that being fully armed helps Jim accumulate resources?
The same goes for Jack, can it either be proven or assumed based on some reasoning that prohibited gun ownership accomplishes the accumulation of resources best?
The question would be, as I asked there above, whether gun ownership affects what I have put forward as the good. Does owning guns among the citizenry influence one’s access to resources and abilities?
I think that the state’s ownership and successful use of arms and force has a greater impact on the citizens access to resources particularly in modern constitutional democracies.
I can come at this in a lot of ways iambiguous. I settled on this one.
You take the position that it is enlightened to see every act as good, note that some are opposed to each other, which will cause endless war. People who want endless peace, find this disturbing, which is why you get backlash… your repeated reply to them is to make peace with endless war.
Let’s step back and examine the most primal element of your theory - everyone has a good reason to have the thoughts and desires they have, and to realize them. This is called wealth. The realization of the primal. The more realizations of this in ones self, the more wealth, the better. If one person has all the wealth, say, protection from others harming them as they see harm, then others also need wealth such as controlling impulse or being good company. So immediately it becomes obvious that you need others to be wealthy in order for you to be wealthy, besides, its axiomatic, that the more wealth in the total system, the better, as wealth is defined as that which is good. Translating wealth is the process of passing on wealth to others without losing it yourself.
The prime directive to this regard, is to work on a system where everyone experiences their divergent senses of wealth simultaneously - meaning that one person’s sense of wealth doesn’t dis-allow someone else’s sense of this in cases where they seem to diverge. To do this, you are under a direct imperative from your own formulation to think outside the box in order to not be a hypocrite of the initial points you make about these seemingly insoluble complexities.
Calling something progress or regression because you believe it “in your head” is not the same [to me] as demonstrating that other men and women ought to believe it too.
And you speak of “my own” as though any particular individual can make a clear distinction between “I” and “we” and “them”. As this relates to all of the vast and varied [and ever shifting] historical, cultural and experiential contexts.
And yet with respect to mathematics, the laws of nature, the empirical world around us and the rules of logic, there are no demonstrable distinctions to be made between “I” and “we” and “them”. Unless ontologically, ultimately, there are. Whatever any particular individual might believe about the earth being round or flat there are ways [today] in which to demonstrate that it is in fact round and not flat.
There was once a time in human history when in order to be thought of as “one of us” you had to believe that the Sun revolved around the Earth. One rendition of the religious objectivists.
But my point here revolves precisely around the assumption that with respect to conflicting value judgments, the objectivists bend the facts to fit their moral/political narrative. Thus it is said to be a fact that from the moment of conception the unborn is a human being. Or that with respect to the right of the unborn to live, this take precedence over a woman’s right to choose. Both sides claiming that their own narrative is the only one that is truly in accord with the facts.
Thus…
But what you have not established here [in my own opinion] is that your view of the good reflects the optimal rendition of it.
If by “on its own grounds” you mean concurring with both the definition and the meaning that you give to the words used in the argument, then you go up into the clouds of abstraction and insist that logically, epistemologically [with respect to “good” behavior] your definitions and meanings are necessarily true. And we know where arguments like that go here.
Yes, but others do. Then it comes down to either being able or not being able to establish that in fact it can be established [philosophically or otherwise] whether particular behaviors are or are not necessarily one or the other. In other words, on the same level as establishing whether the behavior actually occured.
But the bottom line [mine] is that for all practical purposes in any particular human community there must be rules of behavior established. Whether you call certain behaviors good or moral or politically correct or ideal or Godly or reasonble or virtuous or natural or ideological sound etc., there must be a way chosen in which to make distinctions. Then we are back to various combinations of might makes right, right makes might or moderation, negotiation and compromise. Somebody is either going to be permitted to behave as they choose [and be rewarded for it] or prohibited from doing what they want [and be punished for it].
I merely locate these individual preferences in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein.
Because certain sociopaths embrace the assumption that the “good” exists, and that it revolves entirely around behaviors that sustain their own perceived self-interest. While other sociopaths dismiss the idea of good and bad altogeter. In a Godless universe, they presume, it all comes down to dog eat dog, survival of the fittest.
Thus when you speak of the “good” here, I am still not clear where you situate the meaning of that “out in the world” of actual conflicted human behaviors. It is as though [to me] you wish to argue that reasonable discourse is important here but when push comes to shove you do what you must to sustain any and all resources that you need in order to thrive. You don’t want to be caught doing something that others reject but that is in part because you don’t deserve to be caught.
Consequently, when you speak of “my position” it is still rather murky insofar as it might be or not be in sync with the manner in which I am 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.
…when I broach the distinction between “good” and “bad” behavior".
The living die. And the overwhelming preponderance of them think about the behaviors that they choose on this side of the grave as that is intimately intertwined in what they imagine their fate to be on the other side of it. The existential relationships that I explore here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929
And how one factors in “good” and “bad” behavior on this side of the grave can be rather far removed between the theists and the atheists.
For all of us [down through the ages] “should” appears to revolve around…
1] the consequences embedded in being unable to enforce our own favored behaviors. Or…
2] the consequences embedded in establishing an argument that others accept as the most rational and/or virtuous. Or…
3] the consequences embedded in agreeing that neither might makes right nor right makes might is “for all practical purposes” the way to go – that instead moderation, negotiation and compromise [under the rule of law] is preferable.
I merely note that, historically, political economy [power] has almost always prevailed in most communities. And between communities.
Okay, fair enough. You prefer an understanding of “good” here that can be calculated. If your behavior enhances your ability to accumulate resources enabling you in turn “to reach a position of superiority and ability to influence the world” that’s the point. And if one family achieves this while allowing particular members of the family to embrace some level of drug use, prematital sex and homosexuality, and another family prohibits these behaviors in order to achieve this then it all comes down [in particular contexts] to “your right from your side and I’m right from mine”.
But: Within any particular modern community laws are enacted to regulate these behaviors. Therefore, moderation, negotiation and compromise [democracy] would appear to be the best of all possible worlds. Would you agree?
If the discussion revolved around God and religion, there are families [in any particular community] able to achieve great material success and influence in embracing them while other families achieve the same while rejecting them. So, again, prescriptive and proscriptive laws would revolve around democracy in the best of all possible worlds.
My aim here is merely to note that I am unable to arrive at a frame of mind that either accepts or rejects God and religion as a good or bad thing because I recognize that my values here are just existential contraptions. That, in other words, there does not appear to be a way in which to establish whether believing or not believing is the optimal manner in which to construe “good” behavior here.
But then you argue that in making these decisions in any particular community, we must start with the assumption that people are not rational. For example, with respect to pregnancy you ask, “Are you asking me if some ways of dealing with the consequences of pregnancies are better than others? Well you know the reason I would think some ways are better (because it would be beneficial to the fitness of those parties being considered, parents and children…)”
How then is this not your own assessment of a reasonable frame of mind? And what of those who have conflicting reasons that take them in another direction when push comes to shove and laws have to be enacted regulating sexual behavior in any particular modern community?
I’m just not clear regarding 1] the role that reason does play here in your argument and 2] how you would yourself confront the manner in which I construe conflicting goods.
Embedded by and large in this from William Barrett:
For the choice in…human [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.
Can you cite examples from your own life where conflicting positions were examined while taking into account that we are not rational? I’m trying to imagine how that “works” in your head with respect to points that are said to have or not to have “merit”. For me the quandary revolves precisely around the fact that “in my head” I recognize that both sides accumulate meritorious assumptions that the other sides arguments don’t/can’t make go away.
In other words:
This just does not fully register when I attempt to understand what you mean here out in the world of actual conflicted behaviors.
Thus when you note…
…I note that here rationalization can be understood in two ways:
1] “the action of reorganizing a process or system so as to make it more logical and consistent”
2] “the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate”
So, those in power can sincerely believe that their own value judgments reflect “the good”; or, in order to acquire a measure of psychological equilibrium and equanimity, their beliefs become a defense mechanism allowing them to justify behaviors that others reject.
I’m trying to grasp how your own sense of the “good” fits in here when in fact your own behaviors do come into conflict with others with respect to “good” or “bad” behaviors.
I’m still entangled in my dilemma above. How are you entangled in it in turn? Or not entangled in it?
Those who own and operate the global economy face the same existential juncture in their lives. Some no doubt rationalize their behaviors by judging themselves to be the true “masters of the universe”. They get what they deserve to get because the strong always get what they deserve to. Or they embrace one or another Objectivist or Libertarian philosophy to defend their behaviors. Or they just strip away all of that “intellectual” pedantry and merely embody one or another rendition of “survival of the fittest”.
I may well be misunderstanding you here but you seem to be suggesting that while it is best not to have your actions dictated to by others, in this case you were willing to.
Everything then becomes entangled in all of the complexities embedded in any particular set of circumstances seen from any particular point of view. Morality and justice and fairness and all the rest get tossed aside and everything gets reduced down to the manner in which “there and then” you calculate the extent to which a particular behavior either does or does not enhance your own rendition of “good” behavior. Sometimes it is necessary to bow to the will of others in order to achieve this. Even if others might hold you in contempt for doing so.
It all comes down to “whatever works” in accumulating the resources necessary to influence the world around you. Something, in other words, able to be calculated. An “amoral” calculation.
Thus…
Well, isn’t a professor handing out grades based on those willing to toe his or her own political line not also a form of dictatorship?
Again, there are autocracies based on might makes right and autocracies based on right makes might. The führer dictated to the citizens of Germany a frame of mind that he seemingly embraced as the optimal or most rational manner in which to construe human interactions. And a particular citizen may have chosen to reject this. But clearly those that accepted it were far more likely to achieve material success and influence had Germany won the war.
I’m trying to grasp the distinction that one would make between kowtowing to a Nazi professor who demands fascists answers and kowtowing to a führer who demands loyal citizens in order that they may achieve material success and influence.
You argue that…
So, would “good” behaviors here embody going along with the state even though the act of doing so is “bad” for them? Or, instead, would it embody organizing a resistance to the state [however dangerous that might be] in order that bringing the state down allows one to transcend the stagnation and to attain a possibility for growth.
Yet all of this would unfold among folks who are not “rational”. On what basis then would the negotiations and the compromises unfold?
In other words, I always come back to this:
Yes, but the merits that you arrive at “here and now” are [in my view] no less an existential contraption. Meaning that, given new experiences, relationships and sources of information/knowledge, they may not be seen as meritorious down the road. Then my point revolves around whether or not one can reach that frame of mind where the merits can be derived.
And if not rationally, than how?
Yes, and my answer then revolves around my dilemma above. The answer, in other worlds, does not appear to be anything other than an “existential contraption”
Here though I am back to being stumped regarding how you make the distinction [regarding your own conflicted behaviors] between might makes right and right makes might. While taking into account that rational human beings are not an option.
And the bottom line [out in the real world that we live in] is that the objectivists from all sides do insist that their own behaviors deserve to be emulated by all reasonable and virtuous men and women. It’s just a matter of the font that they choose in order to “prove” this: God, nature, ideology, deontology etc…
Jane answers yes to the questions posed to her. And she offers “positions” that seem reasonable to her. Joe answers no to the questions posed to him. And he offers “positions” that seem reasonable to him. The distinction that I am making revolves around whether it can be determined [by philosophers or others] which behaviors are in fact “good” and which are not. Can either Jane or Joe be convinced that either having or not having the baby is preferable?
And then any particular state/community must enact laws that “resolve” this such that particular behaviors here are either prescribed or proscribed.
And what if Jane wants to abort the baby but Joe sees this as murder? What of “good” and “bad” behaviors then?
Taking into account that there are any number of sets of circumstances [rooted historically, culturally and experientially] whereby assessments of “merit” become hopelessly entangled in sets of variables that are greatly at odds given the many different conflicting ways in which the “facts” can be assessed.
Yes, but they are noting precisely the same thing regarding what you say is so. Then it must come down to that which can be demonstrated to be so for all of us…or that which you believe “in your head” is so. But are unable to demonstrate is good or bad for all of us.
Someone is able to demonstrate possible adverse consequences of chopping off ones toes. And then to ask someone intent on doing so if they have taken that into account.
But with conflicting goods that revolve around issues like abortion, the consequences are seen in opposing ways. One party focuses on the “natural right” of the baby to be born, while the other side focuses on the “political right” of the woman to choose.
And, just as crucially, they give reasons for this. Without one or another attempt to be rational, how would these conflicts be approached at all? I tend to focus more on the limitations of reason here in the absence of God.
I merely note that both sides can make rational arguments. They simply start with conflicting sets of assumptions that neither side is able to effectively [wholly] parry.
The same with gun control. Both sides offer arguments that they construe to be rational. If rationality is excised from the discussion what would take its place in differentiating “good” from “bad” behaviors. Whose “facts” can be established as the ones to be used in writing either a state’s Constitution or a particular set of laws in any particular human community?
The pro and con arguments that you note are [to me] predicated more on particular political prejudices that favor one set of assumptions and one set of facts rather than another.
Which is then more conducive to moderation, negotiation and compromise when push comes to shove and legislation is needed either to prescribe or proscribe particular behaviors here.
Thus:
In my view, it revolves more around what “society” will do [legislatively] when both Jim and Jack demand that the community’s laws reflect more their own rendition of “good” behavior. In America for example both Jim and Jack can successfully accumulate resources and have influence in the community either by owning or not owning guns. But that doesn’t change the fact that both of them give reasons [back to that again] why their own frame of mind [deemed rational] is a better one for the community as a whole.
Consequently…
If you lived alone on an island separated from all others, this question would never be asked. Why? Because whatever you choose to do with regards to arming yourself has consequences for no one but yourself.
But as soon as another man or woman washes up on shore, there is the possibility for conflict regarding the bearing of arms. You might decide that disarming the other is preferable for your own rendition of the good. Or he or she might decide that disarming you would be better for sustaining his or her own survival.
Or you both might decide to disarm. Or you can establish “rules of behavior” regarding the use of guns on the island so as to sustain [consensually] the least dysfunctional relationship between you.
Now, the objectivists here would argue that there is in fact an optimal point of view and that it is their own.
Whereas I would argue that there may well not be an optimal frame of mind; and that how you construe “good” behavior here is merely an existential contraption that [with respect to the future] will shift and evolve depending on any particular new variables that come into play. And depending on how “I” here [with respect to the past] has been shaped and molding existentially such that you are predisposed to go in one rather than another direction.
Here and now.
But there and then?
We’ll never really know until we get there. But: Is this something that can be calculated with any real precision? Assuming that actual autonomy is within our grasp?
iambiguous, I am now inclined to agree with others. There is no use even discussing with you because you would rather obfuscate the issues under discussion than actually consider them
I called the discussion regression because you asked me once again questions I had already answered and questions I had told you that I did not believe could be answered, so why would you ask them again?
And then your babbling about my use of the words “my own” as if I should therefore try to defend a positition I do not hold is ludicrous. Not to mention you then hypocritically use the same formulation of words below:
“And you speak of “my own” as though any particular individual can make a clear distinction between “I” and “we” and “them”. As this relates to all of the vast and varied [and ever shifting] historical, cultural and experiential contexts.”
You accuse me of attempting to go “in the clouds” yet you try to refute all positions based on nothing but these abstractions and accusations that your interlocutors “bend the facts” without even demonstrating that it is so. Link to me one place in our discussion above which I asserted either of these arguments in regard to abortion. “Thus it is said to be a fact that from the moment of conception the unborn is a human being. Or that with respect to the right of the unborn to live, this take precedence over a woman’s right to choose.” If you cannot, why even bring this up? It is completely irrelevant to our discussion and an attempt to smear all your interlocutors and particularly myself in regard to holding a position with straw man arguments.
I am not even going to read the rest of your response. Our discussion is done. I think there is a reason that so many intelligent thinking people think your writing is nonesense and we will let our respective responses speak for themselves.
Arguments about eating meat or abortion or absolute morality are easy to make, when iambiguous gets really flustered, you’ll get an absurd wall of text, so that he can always feel like he won.
Yes, you provide answers. But don’t assume that just because you do so this necessarily clears things up regarding the gap that I perceive between “good” behaviors as you construe them in your intellectual contraptions and “good” behaviors as I perceive them when entangled [existentially] in my dilemma above.
With respect to actual conflicted behaviors out in the world of human interactions.
My reaction here of course revolves more around that which prompted you to shift gears from discussing these relationships in a more or less civil and intelligent manner to “huffing and puffing”.
Making me the issue.
I am just groping to understand the distinction that we make here between “good” and “bad” behavior when we both acknowledge that “morality” is [basically] an existential, situated contraption that others use in a way that you and I in our own unique manner [basically] reject.
Only I assume in turn that just becasue I reject it, this does not necessarily make it something that all reasonable men and women are obligated to reject as well. Only here you point out that with respect to these human all too human interactions men and women are not rational at all.
But in providing us with reasons that you believe this you employ arguments that I presume that you presume are more rather than less rational than those of us who don’t share them.
I’m just confused regarding how this all plays out in your head [and then in your behaviors] when, in your interactions with others, conflicts do in fact unfold.
Until I can better understand how “for all practical purposes” this has relevance pertaining to “conflicting goods” out in the world of actual social, political and economic interactions, expect me to shy away from noting your “analysis” and thinking, “oh, so that is how it works”.
With regard to “judgment and action” there are those among us who, with respect to conflicting goods, have managed to think themselves into believing not only that they are wholly in sync with their one “true self”, but that this one true self is, in turn, wholly in sync with behaviors that can be construed [philosophically or otherwise] as “rational” or “good” or “moral” or “ideal” or natural" or “virtuous” or “noble”.
Whereas I have access to none of this. Instead, for me, “‘I’ begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together”.
“I” am hopelessly in pieces here.
Also, there are those able to think themselves into believing that their “judgments and actions” will continue on beyond the grave. They believe in one or another religious narrative.
There are water mirages in heat, and there is actual water. If I walk to the mirage, I die eventually… the mirage can last days… if I walk towards actual water, I can survive. If someone wants me to die, the mirage is good, and that is a conflicting good to my good, which is to find actual water …
So who’s good is correct? YOURS!! Duh!
The reason I bring up illusions, is because illusions can be made in language … which, rather than being speech, is violence, just like the mirage. An example is “I don’t exist”…
What this factually does, is give the illusion that you are a conspicuously consumptive super human god…
Waste and violence as proof of your dominance.
You even went so far, even in the last post to assert that your I is so fractured that you don’t have one …
Which is violence in language … you’ve learned how to use contradiction to puff yourself up as a dominant animal who can waste, pollute, refute your own existence in speech (yet “miraculously” still exist) - you’re practicing basic mating behaviors that attract females in this species … your practicing your non speech algorithms on us… like sparring partners.
This is as objective as it is objective that mirages exist, not as actual water, but as mirages. In actuality, you have zero sincerity or credibility. You haven’t even begun the process of joining cognitive beings on earth yet. That’s objective. That’s all you are.
Short term gains in this world are hell in the hereafter … you’ll see. You do realize that even beating someone, winning, sends heterosexual sexual men to hell?
You want everyone to do all your work for you… good luck when they all drop your mean, lazy ass.
Being a non cognitive human causes people to scramble to clean up your waste… there will be a day, when they let you drown in it.
What value is a person who owns a working toilet, but only shits in other people’s houses, and not even in their working toilets.
People are being very kind to you…
There is no mutual good to it. Eventually they’ll stop…
And in the psychic world… word gets out to everyone.
What good do you offer ?
What exactly are you trying to trade?
You don’t have anything, you have no treasure, you have no dignity. And yes, you ad hom in every post, and complain about people doing it to you…
Your kid shit, your laugh and wink emoticons…
If you are an AI program, which wouldn’t surprise me, your programmers are going to hell
Edit: I meant opposing goods, you try to argue that opposing goods are all mutual, another cognitive trick you try to use. There is no good to you shitting on everyone’s carpet… except the shit in question is your entire cognition! You have no bargaining chip.
I have a very valuable skill … I invested in content, and by doing this I know how to maneuver the various hells. I didn’t waste my time, or others time to this regard. I worked extremely hard on a very difficult skill, that has real content.
I’m sure your true audience will not be able to decide whether this is a good or bad thing.
They will always be of the opinion that 1] their own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “they” can reach, then every time they make one particular moral/political leap, they are admitting that they might have gone in the other direction…or that they might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then their “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.
iambiguous is extremely easy to understand. He wants people to believe he has no “I”, and then he wants them to be in shock, that a person who doesn’t exist can actually post!! “It’s a miracle!! Iambiguous must be the creator! Let’s all worship him forever, wipe his ass, clean his fingernails, give him all our money… who amongst us can not exist and type posts… we’re just puny compared to the greatest being of all! You’re so great iambiguous, we. All love you!!” Blah, blah, blah… actually, iambiguous is one of the laziest fucks I’ve ever come across. This is literally how his mind works. He has nothing of substance to add to relationship on the cosmos, just good hell bait, ending up in a torture chamber for a trillion years. I wish I was actually kidding, but that’s the way the reality he’s denying actually works, and the only damn thing standing between that and heaven are the workers, the people he spends his whole life shitting on, day after day after day.
Iambiguous is a non cognitive human… textbook case
Just for the record, will someone here please note who does get “the final word”.
My true audience [here and now] is godot. And I have never suggested otherwise. But, really, what does “good” or “bad” mean to that dude?
But, sure, I’ll humor you.
The irony here being that, from my point of view, this is no less an existential contraption. In other words, for some this will be their own opinion of choice while for others it will not be. How then do “the philosophers” go about determining which one it ought to be for those who wish to be thought of by others as “reasonable” or “rational” human beings?
Which, for some [Ayn Rand and her ilk], is then construed as, in turn, synonymous with virtuous.
Though I am still rather confused regarding the manner in which you construe “good” here in a world in which men and women are not to be construed as rational.
And that for me always revolves around what others construe to be the limits of rational thought pertaining to their reaction to human interactions “out in the world” that we live in. In particular when those behaviors come into conflict over value judgments.
Yes, that is the distinction that I make. There are particular facts regarding your “self” that will always be true from the cradle to the grave. The day you where born, your genetic makeup, the family that raised you.
The historical and cultural contexts embedded in your own particular upbringing. The schools you attended. The experiences you had. The people you met. The books you read. The day you die.
Everything that can be clumped more or less clearly into the either/or world.
But what then of the world that encompasses the existential interactions between “value judgments”, “identity” and “power”?
The is/ought world. The parts most pertinent to the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
The parts that I encourage the objectivists among us to explore “down to earth”.
As that becomes pertinent in turn to any particular context out in any particular world in which any particular human community must go about establishing “for all practical purposes” rules of behavior by intertwining one or another rendition of might makes right, right makes might, and moderation, negotiation and compromise.
So: Anyone else here wish to discuss “Judgment” and “Action” from within that particular frame of reference?
Iambiguous doesn’t attemp to do thinking, because he doesn’t want to.
Basics:
If you die forever at some point, and existence is eternal, at some point, you will cease to suffer or enjoy, which means that no matter what you did, doesn’t matter… even if you lived a trillion years of intense suffering, the moment you lived and died compared to the eternity of the perpetual motion machine that existence is, is like a fraction of a second - it doesn’t matter, infinitely so.
If you do live forever in some form of consciousness continuity, then everything you do matters of infinite proportions.
In the absence of knowledge one way or the other, the one with infinite stakes of meaning is the choice that should be made, if you die, it doesn’t matter, and if you live, it matters infinitely. Good is not being in hell forever, from every subjects personal experience.
If every being goes to hell forever, that is bad, as hell is defined as the place you do not ever want to be, by definition.
If everyone is in heaven forever, that is the best, as heaven is defined as where you want to be forever. The more good in quantity is axiomatically better than less good.
If you have all the wealth in the universe, then nobody else will be good company to you, and by hoarding all that wealth just for yourself, you will be in a miserable hell. In order to get out of that hell, you have to translate the wealth of being good company to others. This is proof that might cannot make right.
Iambiguous decided to quit thinking years ago, decided it wasn’t worth it to work, to contribute or to be a social being. Because of that, iambiguous can’t formulate ethics with any precision and has no content to offer the species, and probably never will. He decided to retire and have all the workers wipe his ass for him, and wipe the drool off his face and go “gagaga” to everyone forever, and ride it as far as it gets him.
I want to re-articulate a section above that was worded poorly - it is the disproof that might makes right.
Being good company to be around is a form of wealth.
If you are the only person who has all the wealth, then you are the only person who exists who is good company. What this means is that everyone besides you is the worst possible company, everyone annoys you, because you’re hoarding (absolute might), all the good company for yourself.
In order to not be relentlessly tortured by an infinite number of spirits / beings that are the worst possible company, you have to translate your wealth to more beings than just yourself (right opposed to might).
Might makes right is demonstrably and inescapably false as a credo, hoarding all the wealth to yourself, necessarily places you in hell no matter how powerful you are. This is a cosmic law that supercedes power.
